Los diarios de Juana

gettin back to the roots! the summer!

2007-09-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

oo well, i've been meaning to write a little here for a little while but i'd been waiting for a couple of videos to be put up on utube by miriam -- scroll down and you'll catch me speaking norwegian in a REALLY weird accent (and making ridiculous faces too!!)

NORWAY!!!!
vi har vært etter Norge... and we had a fab time! Helped by the fact that we managed to get the guidebook for Norway JUST before we left, it was bit hairy when I realised the library didn't open till 10 on a monday and we had to catch our train at 10.30!!!
We camped not only 3 nights in Oslo but one very wet night in Bergen (so went home with one wet tent!). We were slightly nervous about camping, but Ekeberg campsite was fab, really easy to get to and from, amazing views over the city, and the weather apart from about an hour of rain was fab, which makes camping a WHOLE lot easier! Camping also meant we saved alot of money!!! which, we spent on food, which was just well expensive -- i guess more so coz we couldn't buy bulk or store stuff in a fridge or cook for ourselves --
We got up close and personal to The Stones, not in a literal sense but definitely in a we-could-hear-every-word-they-say-every-note-they-played-from-4-km-away!!!
It was fun exploring Oslo, checking out the Viking Boat huset (house) by going over on a ferry - those boats are impressive, they're huge!!!! Going round the Cultural Heritage museum, we stumbled across the most amazing art 'installation' (not sure if that's the right word but it makes sense to me) in the middle of an exhibition about the Congo. It just reminded me of why I'm so passionate about social injustice.
This Congolese lady, Kate Naluyele, who is studying at Oslo Uni, created this piece called Defeatism. There were two parts: on the wall, a giant sheet covered in different tib-bits of handwritten info about trade, the mining of Coltan from Congo (used in all electronic equipment) and how it relates to poverty and war; on a table, loads of broken bottles, with things like 'greed', 'materialism', 'hate', written on shards of the glass - as Kate puts "sound bites of what has been constantly sustaining the moral injustices of the world".
There was one simple flow diagram that got me:
How I wish my batteries hadn't decided to die at that point so i could show you the whole thing but alas they did, so you'll have to put up with my rather vague explaination --- i hope you get the picture!
I felt really fired up to change the world again after reading all she'd written, especially as you look at the flow chart and see that it starts with us, with the choices we make!
loving art
The other thing that we really loved out Oslo, and it was something we almost missed, cept for the fact we decided to take one of the trams to the end of it's line, and we noticed on the map Vigelandsparken. If anyone ever goes to Oslo, this place is a must - he was an amazing sculpter, who captured human moments and emotions so beautifully in stone and bronze. There's a bridge through the middle of the park that is just lined with these figures, each one telling a different story, showing a different relationship: a father fiercely defending the baby in his arms, an angry child, an old man in deep conversation with his small grandson, a man and woman in an emotional embrace of deepest comfort! It was almost magical to look at them, I guess the warm sunshine helped!!
training it to stavanger
So on from Oslo we took an 8 hour train to Stavanger and Miriam's house - travelling through the fjords was amazing, through the train went super fast, tilting to go round corners and I ended up feeling somewhat nauseous! The funniest thing about the train was that when we arrived at Kristiansand, the train conductor comes along and starts to turn all the chairs round -- he literally flicks a switch (break I guess), swivles the set of 2 seats round to click into place facing the opposite direction! Everyone (almost everyone) seemed totally unprepared and in a total state of confusion as they tried to find the books and knitting they'd put in the pocket of the seat in front! I luckily had the presence of mind to quickly take all our stuff out before the man came so no embarrassing moments of trying to find stuff using my minimal norwegian!
Norge fjord
Arriving in Stavanger, we pretty quickly set off on a ferry to Tau to Miriam's family 'cabin' on the fjord nr Jopeland. We had a chilled out night there and the next day set off up Preikestolen, aka Pulpit Rock - and what a mammoth trek it was! Well it wasn't that bad really, but it was hard work climbing up (or rather over) 'stairs' of giant boulders - but when we got to the top and the fog cleared, the view over the fjord some 600m below was spectactular and well worth it!
tomatoes
oo we're almost at the videos!!! hee hee... the next day we took another ferry trip over to an island called Finnøy, to join in the delights of their annual tomato festival!! It was fab, there were tomatoes, tomatoes galore - for free! whole handfuls - I had to be very careful not to get carried away and tomatoes and me have a love-hate relationship!! we tried fried green tomatoes in a crumby batter with vinegar and olive oil - delicious, and of course some super creamy traditional norwegian cake!
we got abit lost trying to find our way back to the ferry port so ended up missing it by like 30 seconds, grrr!! so rather than drive off we decided to hang round the port and chill out (which included playing the most frustrating card game ever, Mao) - and get alittle silly with videos!! catch my attempts at speaking norwegian!!

oo we got back to our roots in the evening with some music!!! a friend of miriam's has held a garden festival for the last 3 years - they provide the bbq, puddings and drinks, amps etc, and you bring your meat and your instruments/voice/performance! It was awesome, some amazingly talented guys played, a bit of youth gospel choir, the local versions of Sting and Jarvis (in hair, eccentricity and build at least), a local comedian did the most amazing mime, some off the cuff blues, a whole host of other things, and this britney song! sorry its just a snippett!

it was a fab evening and both tim and i thought if we ever have a garden big enough, it;s something we'll do for sure!!!
oo interesting fact about Stavanger, Antony Gormley did an art installation with all these bronze statues of people that he placed round the city called "Broken Column" - if you ever go, keep an eye out for them! Some are in the most unexpected places!!
our last stop in norway was Bergen, the rain centre for Norway (and for Europe apparently) where we flew home.... we got there by taking a rather spectactular boat trip up the coast (cheaper than the bus actually and quicker) which was a little choppy in patches, resulting in alittle sea sickness... and true to it's reputation, it rained... there were a few drops when we arrived mid afternoon but sun and warmth too, but by the evening, the rain settled in for the night!!! It's good place to visit, even in the rain, very charming - especially the World Heritage site, all these old wooden buildings, towering over you, built in really close... in a way it would've been good to stay longer as there is a lot to be seen...

so all in all, we really enjoyed our time in Norway, it was awesome to hang out with miriam, to have a giggle, be silly (and serious), to meet some of her friends (and be made to say my little sentence like some kind of english show monkey - hee hee) and i guess generally be reminded about some of the things that make us tick... xx
p.s this blog always lies about the time, it's actually just after 5pm!

Life moves on...

2007-08-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

oo it's been a while... that's getting to be abit of a theme with me and the internet these days...
anyways... my life... in some ways it's changed a lot (??) and it some ways it still looks exactly the same!!! I'm still being a 'housewife' but there is movement on the horizon!!
... I have a job!!!
St Anne's
well, sort of, I went for an interview with St Anne's Community Services to be a support worker in supported living for adults with mental health problems, and whilst they said I performed exceptionally at interview (which is a 'miracle'!!!), I didn't get the post I interviewed for -- God it seems has slightly different plans to what I thought... but anyway... they've offered me a casual work post - it's provisionally 2 fold but could be 3 fold with me filling in shifts in Supported Living, Community Support and Hostel Support (I have to have a wee extra interview for that last bit). So it's had me excited but also 'depressed', agency work, the 'not knowing' is never fun, but I know it will be a slow start but I reckon once they get to know me I should get regular work which would be great for our bank account but more importantly in terms of experience and development for me!

I've also been REALLY blessed by contact I've fallen into with a clinical psychologist, I sent out some work experience letters back in, gosh when was it?, early June??, and at the beginning of July this lady rings me up saying my CV/letter ended up on her desk -- the totally amazing thing is though that I didn't actually send a letter to her unit!!! Anyways to cut a long story short, I'm going to see her tomorrow to discuss my volunteering in her unit one day a week with the NHS volunteers program --- how cool is that??!!! I'm very excited, it will be fantastic experience!!!
on the 'couch'
I'd also been um-ing and ah-ing about doing a counselling course, and having mulled it over ALOT, and changed my mind ALOT, I think I've decided to just do a short course this September, something to develop me, keep those brain cells firing as I wait for St Anne's to pick up... I'm quite excited by it -- also the Clin Psyc, Ali, sowed the seed of doing a Health Psychology Masters, so might start thinking about that one for next September....
so it's all very exciting, all very changeable, but it's also very much still on the horizon as there is one big barrier in the way....
a CRB!!! I'm praying they will come in a super fast 3 weeks, like Emmie's did last month, but judging on how things were last year, I'm not so optimistic!!! My one for church took 6 months (!!!) and it took another 4 months for me to get my copy of it as it was one of the bits of post kept in that dodgy postie's cellar (it was on the news, and it turns out he's the ex husband of my old roommate's work colleague)!!! grr!!! and the other one I did last year took 3 months!!! so i shall do my very best to be patient!!!

Norge
the last thing to say is I'm very excited coz we're going to Norway on monday!!! Norge Fjorde! woo woo... it wasn't the original plan but we're camping in Oslo for a few days (coz we left booking a hotel really late and it was all booked thanks to a Stones concert), then spending the rest of our time with our friend Miriam in Stavanger, going to a tomato festival (not like the spanish one though where you throw them at each other, shame) eating lots of creamy cakes and marvelling at the delights of Norway!! woo woo!

Honeymoon adventures in Sevilla + Fes

2007-05-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

Bueno bueno…. Ahora para hablar de mi luna de miel!!! Fuimos a Sevilla!!!! Where i brushed up on my spanish, a week gave me just enough time to get back into the swing of speaking and regaining my confidence! We stayed in Hotel Amadeus, which was amazing!! I’ve never been anywhere soo plush, it was a real treat!! And the best thing was it was all musically themed, it’s run by a Mozart aficionado, and there were 2 soundproof music rooms – if only I’d known I would have brought a few pieces and oiled my fingers with some piano playing! Oh the breakfasts in Seville, mmmm, a must for all chocolate fans!! Delicious hot choc every morning!!!

Seville was wonderful, exhausting coz we walked and walked and walked, it’s a fab place to visit, beautiful architecture and the food!!! Wow!! We love tapas!!! Our first tapas was kind of amusing, coz we didn’t really know what to order, so just guessed --- and ended up with loads including a half-baguette sandwich!!!??!!! We totally stuffed ourselves, which was good considering what came later!

Seville is absolutely covered in oranges, so pretty, it would’ve been great if only I could drink orange juice!!

The Jardines de Murillo (gardens)

Torre del Oro

Ferry trouble, not expected!

We had an interesting time trying to get over to Morocco, we’d arranged to catch a ferry from Tarifa on the Friday afternoon at 3pm to Tangier cept when we arrived the ferry was cancelled due to high winds – which is apparently normal for the area, which is second only to Hawaii (I think?) for great surfing/windsurfing or summat and is also known for a high suicide rate due to the constant battering of the town by strong winds… anyways we ended up having a very frustrating wait to get across, going to and from the ferry port every hour or so to see if a ferry would go… eventually at 7pm they told no ferry would go that night…by which point I was a mess, exhausted, stressed – bless him was very patient and loving! Praise God we eventually found somewhere to stay for the night, which was actually really nice….

The next morning, we were VERY pleased to find the ferry was going!!!

To Morocco

So at 9.30ish we set off across the ‘straits of gibraltar’, we set off late so ended up having to wait in the port of Tangier before docking for some time which ended up giving me sea-sickness as we kept ‘spinning’ round!!! It was only meant to be a half hour crossing, but we were on the boat over an hour! I soon perked up once on solid land and we found ourselves an eccentric little taxi, aquamarine with a yellow stripe!! And wound our way through our first sights of Morocco! Whenever I was in a taxi (quite often in Morocco) I did rather feel I was placing my life in the hands of a people who drive like maniacs!! I was soo amazed there were no accidents!

After a 5 hour train journey, which involved our first proper interactions with the Moroccan people (mostly great: a uni student, a beber family with the most adorable little boy, a couple; one not – a young fella made us feel very uncomfortable touting us for business) with some English, a LITTLE Arabic and some extremely dodgy and barely remembered GCSE French (when everything in my head wanted to say it in Spanish!!!), we arrived in Fes, our destination… to say we felt overwhelmed I think would be an understatement, after 5 mins we finally managed to grab a taxi (we were being polite, then realised to get anywhere one really needed to be pushy and muscle in) and attempted to explain to the taxi driver where we wanted to go!!!

Dar Seffarine

We stayed in a lovingly restored riad, Dar Seffarine, when you see pictures of how it was when they bought it, you just really cannot believe it was ever so derelict! It’s like a palace, the mosaics, stacco (decorative plaster apparently), intricately painted wooden doors. Our hosts were Alla, an Iraqi archictect and his Norwegian wife, Kate, who are really just opening their home for you to stay in. And they looked after us when we got food poisoning later on in the week (not nice, at all, took me a couple of weeks to get back to normal – in a strange way, it was good we were both ill!). The riad is situated in the old medina, which is the old city, a crazy, intense place where some 350-400,000 live! Narrow streets, buildings towering up above in a precarious medival type way… even if it’s hot in the sun, wandering those streets you can get pretty chilly!! Morocco is an amazing place, the people are friendly, but you do have to be quite firm sometimes with pesterers…

View from the Roof - Sneaky peek of our second room

Food

We found this fantastic little place to eat on our first night near Bab Boujloud, literally a little square room about 1 metre square, with a dislay cabinet, stove and chair, and 2 tables outside, our patron was such a shrewd businessman. We were the first to sit down, and our host hurriedly sorted out what we wanted, sending off a friend to get the mint tea from a man down the road, to the man next door for the chicken, to another friend for our pudding – the nature of Moroccan business is very much ‘lets work together’. A little bit later we were joined by 3 back packers and we had a great time sharing stories and things, then a 30-something Italian couple took a table, and our patron motioned to us not to say anything to them – we later discovered why – we saw that he actually had 2 menus, one for 30dh, the other for 70dh. Each time a guest arrived he sussed out what they’d be likely to pay! We really should’ve gone back there a few nights later instead of what we thought was a slightly more ‘upmarket’ place with a large building, which gave us food poisoning!!! But anyways our first Moroccan meal was delicious, I told the man in poorly pronunicated Arabic ‘bnin’ which obviously delighted him as he beamed and shook our hands!!

Fountain Mosiac

So apart from the upset tummies which did kinda put a spanner in the works (knocked out for 2 days), we really enjoyed Morocco… it’s an intense place, but well worth a visit… I shan’t say anymore or I’ll bore you to death!!!

Bab Boujloud - Fes Tanneries
Planes

The only thing left to say is the story of ‘the disappearing plane’ which although long I will endeavour to keep short… We were due to fly out from Fes airport at 10.15am on a Ryanair plane….at 9.30ish we heard a plane fly overhead but nothing appeared. It was a little foggy on the runway, but we thought nothing of it. The arrival of the plane came and went as did our departure time with not so much as a tanoy announcement of it’s delay. Somebody starts asking questions and we’re told that our plane has gone to Rabat, that it’s dropping it’s passengers there and is not coming back….there will be no further Ryanair flights till Thursday. WHAT??!! You CANNOT be serious, we all say. There is no official ryanair personnel to tell us what is going on so we just have to sit tight and try not panic (after being so ill, Tim and I were just so eager to get home, I would go so far as to say I was desperate and was contemplating the long train journey back to Tangier and ferry to Spain to catch a plane, any plane home!!).

Next we hear that the passengers are refusing to alight in Rabat, and we are urged to get friends and family to ring ryanair/newspapers etc with our plight. Apparently people who rang Ryanair in England with our flight details were told there was no problem!!! Hmmm!!! Anyways about 1pmish we hear that the Moroccan officials are refusing the passengers entry, the plane will have to return to Fes! Yippeee!!! The day is saved!!! What a relief, especially for one poor family whose baby had to be back for some kind of operation! But the plane doesn’t come back straight away, oh no, the stubbornness of ryanair continues, their complete refusal to admit a mistake! Hey ho… our plane FINALLY arrives at 2.15, to get whoops and cheers from the passengers to be…and we are in the air at 3.15!! we should’ve been half way back to Sheffield on a train by now! But the difficulties don’t end, not only had the airport café run out of food and water thanks to our delay, the airplane was severly low on stocks too….everyone was starving but half way down the plane the sandwiches run out!! Oh dear…. But eventually we get to England, and a very kind train ticket man lets us on the train, sympathising with our situation with the comment ‘No one should have to stay in Luton’! Phew!!

We were sooo glad to get home and to be greeted by Ceri (and Joe), who drove us home and had blessed us with stocking up our cupboards and fridge with delights!!!

Phewff….. well done for getting to the end! Hope that all made sense! As you can see it was an eventful yet enjoyable honeymoon! Hope you like the piccy’s!! xx

At last, some news!! The big day!!

2007-04-25T05:37:00.000-07:00

After such a long blogger absence, rather than waffling on about all the stuff that's happened since last august (!!!!), I'll just dive straight in to the most exciting stuff!

The biggest news of recent months is I got married! On the 10th Feb at 1.30pm at St Thomas' Church Philadelphia, Sheffield, I became Mrs Blundell Jones....

First is the snow!!! this was how Sheffield was the night before our wedding!!! absolutely crazy! I must admit I was panicking slightly though everything turned out all right in the end. At one point it looked like I was 3 bridesmaids down as they couldn't get to where we were getting ready, and Tim's parents were stranded in their village! The snow had closed the Grindleford roads but luckily (!!!) they live very close to the train station so could hop on a train! Good job Tim had decided to stay with one of his best men rather than his parents!!! Or it could've been serious!!

Almost ready!

And my gorgeous bridesmaids prepared for the weather! Why oh why did we chose february to get married?! hee hee

Setting off to the church!!! All very exciting!!! We managed to arrive early. I had wanted to be traditionally late but alas it seemed we were too organised!! or we needn't have rushed so much to get ready! Mind you we did start at 7.30am!!!!

Mr and Mrs Blundell Jones leaving the church!!! very happy!

It was a fab ceremony, thanks to loads of wonderful friends and family helped out in sooo many ways and made it extra special. The best bits of the ceremony, other than the getting married bit were my old gospel choir singing 'Lovely Day' and singing a spanish song by Danilo Montero 'Cantare de tu amor', keeping it real with gospel and latin american -ness!!! It was soo wonderful to have soo many people sharing in our big day, so many friends and family from all over the shop! We loved every minute of it, though I was just alittle sad I didn't get to spend quality time with people, barely a hug and a hello with most! Any ho, that's to be expected!

Cutting of the cake!!! and the queen of goofy faces strikes again!!!

The reception was fun too (with an Ecuadorian themed menu!!! oh yes!), unfortunately my brothers jazz trio couldn't play coz the guitarist got stuck at the watford gap with his car unable to go over 40miles an hour! And apparently more gutting was my mum had prepared a song to sing with them!! So that dream wasn't realised, but i think we did pretty well at realizing our dream of making everything as ethical as possible from the wedding cake (my mum made a superbly delicious fruit cake, and a Chichester organic coffee shop did the carrot cake and chocolate cake), to the dresses (organic silk -very little sweatshop labour as they were made by us! me, mum, charlotte, emmie and even tim!), to the invites (fairtrade recycled handmade paper), the order of ceremonies (fsc paper/card) and the jewellry (big woo woo to people tree and achkiy for fab designs!) etc.... oo and my other big dream, was to make my wedding dress, which i did, with a little (!!) help from my mum when i got too stressed and behind to do it all!

And a little bit of salsa!!!

We'd worked quite hard getting a routine together, shame i couldn't have practised it in my dress, coz i spent most of the time looking and my feet, worrying that i was going to trip over my dress!!! But everyone seemed pretty impressed!! Dancing salsa has been something I've 'always' wanted to do at my wedding, another dream come true!!!

Last but not least we come to the two families now united!

I shall endeavour to put up a few honeymoon photos soon and update on life as it is now!

Big news!!!!

2006-07-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

aahhh!!!! here is a VERY cheesy picture of me and Tim moments after he proposed last thursday! wish we'd managed to take a better picture (i look like i've got well short hair when in actual fact it's the longest i've ever had it!!!) but never mind! we shall be wed at the start of next year... it's my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary at the beginning of january so we're looking at the end of the month, the beginning of feb! It's very exciting, and it's great experiencing people's reactions to the news! I just pray our lives would continue to reflect Him as we prepare for life together!

the other big news is that i am finally starting The Job! The one i applied for in january, nearly didn't bother interviewing for coz they were soo ridiculously slow but got given mid-end april. I shall finally start it on the 1st of august!!! it's been a ridiculous time really, but whilst i've been waiting i've been gaining invaluable experience working as a special needs teaching assistant with an agency mainly at one school in Rotherham. It has NOT been the easiest time, and some days especially during the last 5 weeks, when i have been with the same particularly challenging group of young teenage boys, i have felt ABSOLUTELY exhausted, wanting just to curl up and cry at the end of the day (and in fact did on occasion)! It has been a priveledge and i've one week left to go, part of me will miss the boys i've been working with but another part will be relieved for that 'door' to close! I'm looking forward to this next chapter... (oo i forgot to say, my new job is as a Residential Support Worker in a respite -short breaks- home for children with learning disabilities)

for your delight and chuckles there are a few photos below from my 'clashing clothes' birthday party, i inflicted great embarrassment upon my friends by requesting they go out for a night on the town (a bar and then onto a funky music night called Lights down Low) dressed as ridiculously as possible... it was really fun and actually quite liberating, we got quite a few funny looks but felt so free and thought how boring everyone else looked!!! waa haa!!!

hope all is well in your worlds, i'll endeavour to not leave it so long between blogs!!!
oodles of love
me xxx

being a bridesmaid for the first time!!!

2006-05-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

So i had the priveledge of being the then Miss Liz Tyler's chief bridesmaid on saturday!! I've never been a bridesmaid in my life before, so i was very excited!!! (As a child I'd pinned my hopes on my uncle getting married to his partner but he never did!) Talking of being excited, i remember being quite over come with emotion when Liz asked me when she rang me a little while after i got back on Bristish soil!
The first photo shows Pete Brown (the best man), Liz and Matt Wisbey and me as we signed the register! oo i'm an official witness to their marriage!!!

This next photo is them outside the church, covered in the traditional confetti, then just below is Tim and I at the evening reception.
It was such a lovely day, and it all went well, the weather even held out for most of it! Liz looked gorgeous, radiant in her beauty and i feel i did a very successful job in keeping her calm and collected, and nothing went wrong, so well done me!!! But i really couldn't believe how utterly exhausted i felt on sunday, i was like a zombie for most of the day!

Not much in the way of other news, life in the Shire has it's ups and downs, as does 'work life' as i STILL await my CRB to start my 'proper' job... i am trying to be content and trust but every so often doubt and worry poke me. When i have it, i am really enjoying the special needs teaching assistant work, but there's really not much of it! oo starting to feel waffling coming along, so i shall make a quick exit so as not to bore you!
take care one and all!
love me xxx

oo doesn't time fly!!!

2006-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

so what have i been up to this last little while? good question... in terms of job stuff, it's not been at all fun! i've applied for lots of jobs but have just not been successful - i'm clinging to the truth He has plans to prosper me! But actually there is sunshine on the horizon -- after Easter i'm hopefully going to be starting as a special needs supply teaching assistant (rather long-winded job title!) for a Sheffield education agengy. In alot of senses it really ISNT what i want to be doing but i've come to the conclusion it'll be good experience and will give me some much needed cash so it can't be all bad!

at end of february tim and i went down to London for the annual SPEAK gathering which always involves a day of action round parliament...
SPEAK article

This is us on parliament square , getting ready to do some symbolic actions! In the afternoon we attempted to meet with our MPs, but mine was nowhere to be found! grr!!! it was a good day though, and it was really good to do something practical!

Oo this next picture was taken at the beginning of march - would you believe how long that icicle is?!!!!! crazy... we went for a walk for a friend's birthday and it was absolutely freezing, and the top of the hill was COMPLETELY caked in snow, REALLY deep in places, which was quite amusing as suddenly you'd lose a foot in height and the snow caved in underneath your feet!! hee hee. the snow this year i do feel has been completely ridiculous , there was even a few minutes of it yesterday though it didn't settle...
The next two pictures show Tim before and after his 'Kut or Keep' to raise funds for HopeHIV, such a worthy cause to make such drastic action for! Originally there had been a third option of dreds but i veto-ed that! So this is how my fella looks now, well actually the hair has grown quite a bit since then as 'The Kut' happened almost 3 weeks ago!
right well, it's dinner time, my stomach;s feeling empty, so i should think about doing some cooking!!! chao!

me and him...

2006-02-13T04:01:00.000-08:00

well hello everybody, it's been a while!!! and as you can see i'm doing well!!! this is me with my fella, Tim, we've been going out for a month and it's all great fun! for those of you who don't know him (quite a lot of you), i know him from my university days! Just to fill you in, he's 26, a landscape archictect (lots of gardening!), a funky DJ and a fairtrade/justice freak!
no news on the job front yet, applying and waiting, and i'm now on the dole, which threw me at first but now i've come to see it as just the most amazing blessing of how i am being provided for!! in ecuador without a job, i'd be on the street just trying to make ends meet, no chance of following your desired career path - makes you realise JUST how blessed we are over here!!! and wonderfully my days aren't filled with boredom as i'm going into the children's work office at church a couple of days a week and just serving them doing all sorts of admin type stuff which is really great for me and for them!!! so i am managing to keep out of mischief, just!!!
at the mo, i'm very much looking forward to a SPEAK (www.speak.org.uk) weekend conference at the end of the month, a chance to get active with my campaigning again and go 'raaahhh' at David Blunkett my MP (which actually is more than a little scary!!! ooo!!)... i really missed that side of life whilst in Ecuador, so yippee!!!
so that's me, i'm good, God is GREAT, keep watching this space!!!
oodles of love
me xxxxxx

time for some news!!! christmas and shoes

2005-12-29T12:14:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas, Feliz Navidad, and a Happy New Year, un Feliz Ano Nuevo....

oo my it's been quite a while since i was last here!!! to the left is a picture of a severe frost that we had whilst I was at my Latin Link debrief weekend, it was BALTIC!!! but a very good time of rest, reflextion and reuniting...

the picture at the bottom is of a house... the one where i now live in Shiregreen (Sheffield), the council estate known affectionately in my books as 'The Shire', thus conjuring up all kinds of nice, pleasant, and pleasing thoughts of hobbits, rolling countryside, peace and tranquility... which sometimes seems so far from what Shiregreen is like(like when Michal's van windows got smashed in when he was standing right by it on STOMP visits)!!!

so, that little thing called my life... it's so hard to quantify, to explain, but i've been enjoying it!!! Being back in Sheffield is great, and although a job isn't very forthcoming (though watch this space, i am awaiting news!!) time is filled with Shiregreen STOMP (kids club), meeting friends, baking, reading and alsorts - my days are never dull! (well, ok, rarely!)

i feel content in my life, satisfied that i am in the place He wants me, and as ever there are things to grow me and challenge me... and i feel after my year overseas that i am much more up for the challenge, whatever it may be! i have definitely grown alot.
hmm... i'm trying to be thoughtful and deep but i'm not very good at it, as Dave (fellow strider) came to know only so well over the past year when he continually 'fired' all sorts of 'hard' questions at me and was met by a very blank looking face!

oo so that the word shoe in the title isn't just an attempt a rhyme without reason, i must say that i have just bought some new shoes for 'work' which i am very pleased with as they suit my podiatrist's specifications and they aren't dowdy! yeay! i must say it was quite a trial trying to find any that would suitably fit my new orthoses!

well, to all you who have bothered to check out this mariposa on the off chance of an update, well done!!! your faithfulness has been rewarded... and to those who haven't (and hence aren't reading!) more fool them, they knoweth notith on whateth they misseth outith! ha ha
no really, love to all known by me!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 9.40pm

NEWS FLASH!!

2005-11-11T20:00:00.000-08:00

well hallo there!!! it's been awhile my dear friends!! i wonder if any of you have been faithfully loggin on to see if there's been anything new!!

so, i've been home quite a while now, and it's been kind of quietly manic! it's good to be home, i've not had a difficult time really, only thing has been getting my bodyclock into swing which has actually been tough, had 2 weeks of RUBBISH sleep (did i?) plus flu-y cold leaving me quite literally EXHAUSTED and at the end of my tether! but culturally i've 'slipped right back in'... though hopefully not totally, and actually i think i've bought a whole load of stuff back with me -- one of my bestest chums in the world said to me the other day that i'm alot more open and confident, latin trait i feel-- i wonder what other things people will notice?? interesting!!

i've yet to REALLY process all the changes, and i'm on the eve of a great big new one!!!
I'm about to move back up to Sheffield to a new house + housemates, new area, and (hopefully) a new job! I'm moving into a council estate where with my church we've been doing a kids club - it's not a particularly nice neighbourhood, and one could probably say its less safe than where i was living in Quito - go figure!! but it's cool and exciting, if slightly nerve-racking!!

so here's to the next stage of my life, exciting but the hard slog known as 'finding a job' is not such an enticing prospect!! here goes!! man it's 8pm and i have NO packing done yet!! aahhh!!! :)

I'm back!!!

2005-10-07T13:20:00.000-07:00

So, I’m back!!!
This is me as I arrived at Heathrow (will be uploaded later)!! Slightly worse for wear, but not too bad ey?!
Weirdest things so far – being able to flush loo paper down the loo, now just feels wrong! Using seatbelts in the back of cars, and not having to put the locks down when you’re driving round!
Been sleeping lots, my bodyclocks a bit haywire, but otherwise I’m adjusting fine so far, and I’ve started ‘sorting out my life’!!! ooo!!!
Will be in touch with yous soon, but just off to my grandparents right now for the weekend!Love you all
Me x

Me and my church friends....

Settling in and letting go...

2005-10-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

So this is my last blog from this continent!!! It’s all kind of strange, but it’s been a good last week. What has been cool is that I’ve been able to help the new striders settle in, which has also helped me let go as I, in a sense, ‘hand-over’ my responsibilities. The first day, understandably, they had what I call scared-rabbit-faces… but by the end of the week were looking more settled but pretty exhausted!!! I’m sure they’re going to have a great year in Remar, and it was really cool for me to get to meet them and show them the ropes alittle!

Photo time
Last week I told you that I’d been a photographer taking everyone’s picture with whom they wanted. Well, tuesday I had great fun handing them out to everyone; it was so lovely to see everyone’s faces light up as they received the photo they’d chosen!! I also wrote a goodbye message on the back of each one, which took quite some time to do! For me, this was the perfect leaving present, something I could give to everyone, and something that will last (hopefully!) and something they don’t have the chance to do themselves!

Rain, rain, rain
So, ‘winter’ has started here again….which basically means that it will be lovely sunny and hot in the morning but by the afternoon there’ll be a SERIOUS thunderstorm! So one knows not to go out without an umbrella or a jacket!

Preparing for re-entry
Tuesday breakfast time, Dave (strider in ambato) and I supposedly had a ‘goodbye’ meeting with the Stride co-ordinator for Ecuador, but there was a road block so he couldn’t get down from Santo Domingo…but anyway Dave and I had a good wee chat, and he’s lent me a book to help prepare me for ‘Re-entry’ which is proving very useful, though I’m finding precious little time to go through it ---but I have like a 5hour wait in the US, so it’ll give me something to do!!!

Goodbyes…
So, friday was the day of truth….the, this-is-it,-I’m-actually-leaving-day. Not entirely sure what I did friday morning, bit of playing with the kids, bit of helping in the kitchen and generally just chatting with people. It came to lunch time, and we were all waiting to eat, the girls were moaning about empty stomach’s (especially those who hadn’t been allowed out at breaktime, and hadn’t received their bread, just a wee tiny slice of my home-made, Ecuadorian style Caramel Shortbread which I’d made for everyone), finally at a quarter to 2 Maria Augusta arrived, the food was ready and we entered…. They’d decorated the comedor with streamers and balloons (saying ‘welcome to my party’). They started by singing me a song which got the old waterworks going ‘we love you in the love of the Lord’, then Blanca (one of the slightly older girls) said a few words of thanks, which got me going even more!!! Blubber, blubber, blubber. So then I was invited to sit down at the table, and tried to regain my composure as the kids sang with Maria Augusta all the songs they could remember from bible club whilst the food was passed round. Then before we ate, several of the girls said prayers for the food and for me, which was really touching, then we tucked in!! and VERY tasty it was too, a sort of stuffed meat with a tomato sauce that the amazing Nellie had prepared! After helping tidy up, a few of the girls put on some music and danced in my honour, cute! Then came THE moment, I went upstairs and got my bag, and came down again, Tati called silence and I had to give a few words, I couldn’t even get the first word out without a blubber!!! I managed to say something though not very coherently!!! SO then started the goodbyes of all who were in the house, each kid coming up, giving me a kiss and a hug, me trying not to blubber!!! So I went out through the front door being clung onto by the kids, more goodbyes, more kisses, walking down the steps across the patio to the gate!!! At the gate more goodbyes and kisses, and ‘come back soon’s, a big hug and tears from Tati, and a ‘we hope you’ll come back through this door soon’, and out I stepped into the world and started to walk down the street… I walked slowly down, and Valen popped out her head ‘bye tia Joanna’, I turned and waved and carried on, then there was a whole chorus of ‘bye tia Joanna’, turned and all the kids and tati were standing out on the street shouting and waving, as I got to the corner, I turned and waved one last time, though the view was slightly obscured by people, and left. That last view is engraved on my mind… as I walked away, I tried to regain my composure and just felt sooo thankful for my year with them all in Remar!!!

Karaoke!! (what?!!)
Friday night was my ‘despedida’ from the youth in my church, so after our meeting, we set off to find something to eat…there were about 15 of us I think munching away at pizza and finally at 11.30 we finished and thought about heading to find a karaoke place! Numbers dwindled slightly as it was getting late, but we were still 11, a very good number, and after like 40mins of driving around first trying to find a place that wasn’t chocker, then trying to find a parking space we got there!!! Oo and what fun it was, where we ended up, there were a few other groups, some of whom had very drunk people who VERY enthusiastically and out-of-tunely sung their songs much to my amusement and horror! I sang 3 songs, one in Spanish and 2 in English and everyone sung along, but what was good about this place was that you didn’t have to stand up in front of everyone, but by the end we and an old fella, were the only people left!! We had great fun, lots of laughs, and finally got home just before 3am!!! Oo I felt tired in the morning!!!

Last minutes…
In the last few days been fitting in a few last minute sight-seeings…. First we went up the Panecillo to see the Virgen of Quito, a big statue of the virgin Mary that is on a hill just after the old town, you get an awesome view of the city --- following the virgins gaze you see the north, then far behind her stretches out the south… which Paquita said just wasn’t there when she was a girl! Yesterday I took Paquita and Armando to the Botanical Garden, a relatively new ‘attraction’ in Quito, still not finished but it was just lovely to wander round, very well laid out and it was just so nice to hear wee birds chirping all around!! Just now I’m popping off to Fundacion Guayasamin, the museum/gallery of a famous Ecuadorian painter.. oo and the other last minute thing, a haircut!! It just had to been done, I couldn’t face coming home and having to pay a minimum of 25quid for a haircut, when I can get one for under 6 here!!!!

So, it is to all intents and purposes over, said my goodbyes to all in church yesterday (thankfully non-teary!!), and the pastor even gave me a public goodbye/prayer in the service. I’m pretty much all packed and ready to go, it’s well weird to be leaving, and I can’t imagine what life will be like back in England, but here goes!!!

P.s. thanx for reading this blog over the year, hope you’ve found it interesting and amusing… and don’t forget about it, coz I’m sure I’ll put something up from time to time!

The sands of time

2005-09-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

Winding down
I’m actually now in my last week, which is just crazy, I can’t believe it, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a really excited kind of way, but more in a half shell-shocked kind of way. But this week I’ve definitely been through all the emotions, felt really nervous, felt really excited, felt sad… it’s going to be hard to leave but I know I can’t stay, and that it’s not right to stay… but everyone, after saying ‘no te vayas’ (don’t go), they ask ¿y cuando regresas? (when do you come back?)

Maria llena eres de gracias
Maria, full of grace --- it’s a Colombian film that I’ve just been to see this week, don’t know if you’ve heard of it where you are? Basically it’s about a young Colombian lass who works in a flower factory but gets fed up with it and ends up getting into in being a drugs mule… it’s a very interesting movie, not gross, not violent but thought provoking. A few days later Tati happened to ask if I’d seen it, and it turns out that actually an awful lot of people in Colombia get involved in trafficking this way… she also said they’re always coming up with new and ingenious ways of trafficking, for example, they’ve made ceramics using cocaine, and they also somehow put it into paintings!!! And just to keep it real, this week in the Metro newspaper there was an article saying that Ecuador is the drugs ‘cabinet’ of the region… to give you an idea, between June and Sept this year, 14 tones of drugs have been ‘recovered’ in the country!!! Ooo

Portraits
This week, I’ve been a bit trigger happy, clicking and clicking and clicking!! Why you might ask? as part of my ‘despedida’ (goodbye), I decided I’d give a foto to ‘each’ person in Remar, so I’ve been going round asking who they want their photo taken with… I finally ‘finished’ today and so am on the internet whilst they print them all out for me like 140!!!! I decided this was probably the best present to leave, as I can do it for everyone, they get to choose, having the memory that they want, and also they don’t have much chance to have their own photos, something we generally take for granted!!!

Not again…
Went on the great shoe hunt on thursday with Lili (responable de Mitad el Mundo a.k.a. Boys house), I was going to use the money left over from the swings in the girls home to start a renovation of the playground in the boys home, but I was so slow in organizing it that a new need came up, far more urgent – the boys don’t have school shoes… so we went hunting for the best prices to fit the money we had, though unfortunately we didn’t manage it.. though Lili and Ivan (her husband) went to Ambato on sat to a Señor who has given a good discount before, and I hope they got the 20 pairs of shoes successfully! (I’ve yet to see them)
So, the reference to ‘not again’, as we were traveling back to Remar, our bus had to take a different route coz those pesky students are out protesting again!! I’m not entirely sure what the problem is, but the people very quickly get tired of the governments, too quickly! But what got me, is that it isn’t just uni students, but school students! It makes me sad coz I see the hordes of them and just feel like they’re a load of lost sheep, getting carried along, not understanding the issues… hmm…

New striders
Sooooo, 3 new striders arrived on tuesday at midnight, and I got to meet them properly on friday – Janeth and Stuart invited us all over for dinner – Beccy and Debs are going to be in Remar till march and june respectively, and Ali will be in Quito a month before heading down to Santo… they’re really lovely girls, I find it really exciting that they’re just starting out and have so much to experience and learn. And they’ve been ‘hand-picked’, one is really up for getting involved in the English classes, and the other like arts n’ crafts so looks like she’ll be fab for the cards!!! Wow, God’s sorted that one out lovely!

Teleferiqo
On saturday I went up the Teleferiqo, Quito’s newest tourist attraction, a cable car that goes up to 4050 m www.teleferiqo.com … did feel slightly nervous during the 8min ride but what an awesome view, and it was great to go with my friends as they are always cracking jokes--- we came down about 3, ate a very late lunch whilst the queue got ridiculously long, I was so glad we went when we did and even more so because we got to the bottom of the park just as the heavens opened, there was thunder and lightning and everything, and just would not have wanted to be in a cable car in that storm, or on the top of the mountain for that matter!!

Well that’s it… and I guess there will only be one more blog update from these shores!! Though I will update me blog from time to time I reckon in England… oo interesting fact of the week, a men’s haircut I saw advertised as 70cents, about 40p!!! can you believe it? I’m gonna try and get a haircut organized here as it’s less than a fourth of the price and there’s no way I can bring myself to get a haircut in the UK when I get back!! Chao xxx

The seasoned traveller!

2005-09-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

So, over the last 2 weeks I’ve managed to fit in quite a bit of last-minute traveling,get ready for some waffling...

Cuenca
Last weekend I popped down to Cuenca with the primary purpose of saying goodbye to a 3 sisters who had been in the girls house here in quito but have moved down to the house in Cuenca. Tati was supposed to have rung them to warn the ‘responable’ at least that I was coming, only she didn’t, so although I was extremely enthusiastically greeted by a surprised Mayra, and the other 2 sisters, the woman in charge regarded me with extreme caution and almost coldness it felt… and when the pastor arrived I felt almost like I was being interrogated! Horrible! But anyway, Mayra (12) very proudly gave me a tour of the house, introducing me to everyone, then her and her sisters (Diana,14 and Maria Jose,18) excitedly asked me questions about all the girls in ‘La Embajada’ (the house where I work). So I spent the day in the children’s home there, playing with the kids, helping with lunch, taking them to the park…and then just before I left I got the gels to write a letter to the girls in quito which they really appreciated doing. They seem quite content in Cuenca but they do really miss Quito!

On the saturday I took a trip to Ingapirca, 2 and abit hours northwest of Cuenca, it’s the Ecuadorian rather measly equivalent of Macchu Pichu though worth the visit! I went with Ulf, who I met in Remar on friday, he’s a compatriot of Pascal, from the same organization but working in Remar Cuenca…so it was cool to have some company and not be a loner!!!
I came back to Quito on sunday afternoon, cheating by flying (it’s a grueling 10hrs in bus!!!) having spent the morning wandering the streets of Cuenca… it’s a beautiful colonial city, pretty laid back and they have a REALLY different accent down there, almost like they are singing when they speak and the Quiteños can’t stand it!! All in all though I liked Cuenca, and would heartily recommend my hostal ‘Milan’, the only thing was just as I was thinking how lovely it was to sit by the river in the sun and how it would make a great picnic spot, I saw a rat pass by!!! Urghhh!!!

So near yet so far, dreams thwarted by the weather...
Monday morning I popped into Remar for 1½hrs before catching a bus down to Ambato to meet David (other strider) and his visiting friend, Will. We were going to Shell (a wee village named after the company! Hmm) to have an encounter with the Huaroni, aka the Aucas (‘Savages’ in Quechua), the Indian peoples who became widely known in the 50s after they murdered 5 american missionaries. Our contact was through some American missionary friends of David’s who are working in the HCJB hospital in Shell.

We arrived about 6pm in Shell to be greeted by the hot stickyness of the jungle region and an interesting medley of creature sounds, there are some bugs who just sound like a load of sirens going off all the time, VERY bizarre!! Frances informed us that she'd got us a MAF flight booked for 2pm the next afternoon for a wee visit to an Auca community, and also to fly out over Palm Beach, where the murders took place (kind of morbid I guess but I have a great interest in this whole story as I wrote an essay on one of the missionaries during my time in Redcliffe).

Tuesday morning we took a wee trip into Puyo, the last stop before the jungle, for a wander and got back to Arthur and Frances’ in time for lunch… we rung just to check about our flight and were sadly informed that they couldn’t fit us in coz of some emergency to which they had to attend, but they said we could go the following morning at 7am… so, a little disappointed we found something else to do for the afternoon – first of all Frances gave us a tour of the hospital, then we wandered around Shell (there’s not really anything to see) until we came to the river… so we were sat there watching the kids play in the water when a whole load of new army recruits came marching by and proceeded to do some kind of extremely bizarre exercise in the water, boots and all! Hardwork! I remember once trying to swim in my pajamas in a swimming class and that was hard enough, let alone in an army uniform!!!

The following morning, we woke up to rain! it didn’t look promising but after breakfast we wandered over to the MAF hanger to await the rain stoppage and our flight out into the jungle… sometimes it rains then clears up quick, though after 4 hrs waiting, it became clear that the rain had settled in for the day, and, as we had to get back to Ambato/Quito, we rather disappointedly admitted defeat, that our flight was a ‘no-go’ and say our goodbyes. Though it wasn’t all bad as during our wait an Ecuadorian guy came over to chat to us, and it turned out he was a ‘teacher’ at the wee bible college they’ve opened in the community we were going see, so it was really cool and encouraging to hear abit more about it even if we didn’t get to see it! So, I’ll just have to come back to Ecuador one day to complete that wee dream, another excuse for a return visit!

School starts
The Remar school has now been going for 2 weeks, slighty ropey start but things are back in the swing now… English classes have started again but the responsilbilty has been handed over, Pascal is now in charge …although part of me would have liked to have been involved, even for just a little bit, it’s better this way, and I spent a good morning explaining to Pascal what Anne and I did last year, giving a few tips and ideas which hopefully will have set him in goodstead for the challenges and joys of teaching to come!!! It’s been good to see all the kids back in the house again, though I’m not getting much time to spend with them!

Birthday
Yesterday it was Tatiana’s birthday and poor thing she ended up a complete mess!!! The celebrations didn’t start until the afternoon…first the girls decorated the dining room with ballons and streamers and things, and then finally the birthday lunch was ready ---which the mother-in-law had been preparing for 2 days previously (a special ‘tamal’, a maize meat veg thingy wrapped in plaintain leaf)… the lunch was eaten, then it was time for the cake… Everyone gathered round and of course there came cries of ‘Que muerde el pastel’ (that she bites the cake), Tati lifted the cake to her face saying nobody push me, but of course Ivan (the husband of the responable of the boys home, a real joker!) pushed her head right in, and as that happened, a load of the kids got her with eggs –more than 10 I reckon… and then began the ‘battle’… tati covered in egg yolk and shells ran outside to try and catch the culprits, only as she tried to catch them they threw more eggs and flour as well… this went on for ages, then Ivan came out with a bucket of water and soaked tati with that, more eggs, more flour and Claudia, the wife of Tati’s nephew, even managed to crack an egg in tati’s trousers! Poor thing she was well and truly got! And what was really funny (in a kind of cruel way?) was how upset Valentina got (her 4yr old daughter) at her mother’s plight, she was crying, and shouting at people and pushing/punching them to get them to stop! Finally it came to an end but not before they threw another bucket of water and a bucket of some kind of goo over her and of course more eggs and flour! She had it bad but it was very amusing and she was still smiling. Though I didn’t get to see her after she came out of the shower to find out if she did enjoy it as I had to leave!!

So that has been my past 2 weeks, JUST 2 more to go!! I know I have to leave, but part of me doesn’t want to go, although obviously part of me does! But I am looking forward to seeing yous…but its hard to leave and really doesn't seem real!
God bless
me xx

Hopping...

2005-09-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

So, Remar, pretty chilled, we were pretty low key on the card making front, though that is where i spent my week… annoying thing is how the kids, particularly the teenage boys, insist on trying to matchmake Pascal and I! Grrr!!! It’s very hard to know how to deal with it! I guess that in a round about way it’s sweet, it could be a sign of affection that they insist on setting me up or it could just be ‘that’ stage!

Nice of them to let me know…
This week I found out through the monthly Latin Link prayerfile that 2 new striders are coming to Ecuador, to Quito, and to Remar! You’d think they’d let me know seeming as we’re here at the same time, there’s actually only an overlap of 2 weeks, but still!! But anyway that’s really quite exciting, and Tati is thrilled!

Can’t keep up…
More new volunteers this week, 5 american lasses, who will come just one day a week for the next few months whilst they’re here studying…

Over the border…
At the weekend, Paquita, Armando and I took a trip uup northh, to Tulcan basically in order that we could pop over the border for a shopping spree in Ipiales! At the border I tried to get a stamp in my passport, but before I could get the Colombian one, I had to get an exit stamp from the Ecuadorian side but the man wasn’t there to buy the form!!! The crazy thing was there was a Colombian lass who needed to get all the paperwork to get back into her own country!!! So, Ipiales, is the nearest Colombian city to the Frontera, and is very popular for Ecuadorians to nip over and do abit of shopping! The funny thing is, it literally has all 4 seasons in an hour… 15 mins hot, 15 mins windy, 15 mins raining, 15 mins sunny … no joke, it actually happens like that!! We set off at 6am (!!!), and made the journey in 3 hrs!!! (4hrs in bus, but then when buses leave, there is lots of traffic!) It was lovely to journey at that time of the day, watching the night-time clouds roll back from the mountains!! We shopped hard for a couple of hours, then went for lunch, and I ate my first Cuy!!! Which is in fact guinea-pig! I didn’t like it that much, the skin was rather like pork cracking (tasty) but the meat chewy and tastes abit like the brown meat of a chicken (which I don’t like very much)… reckon my bro will be upset to read that I’ve finally got round to eating a relative of his much loved child-hood pets!!! Then we went back to shopping before heading back to Tulcan where it was almost freezing! Ok, so it wasn’t freezing, but it was pretty cold!!!

a 'cuy'

Over the paramo…

Sunday morning we took a back path from Tulcan to the village of Angel, over the paramo, the highlands, which was actually a path the guerillas (FARC) have used in the past (!!!!) – it took us 2½ hrs to go 43km on a very bumpy road, but it was worth it! Armando called it virgin land, untouched --- it’s very different to anything else one would see, it’s covered in plants called (in Spanish) frailejones, the mountain sides are littered, freckled in them… and Armando says that in the twilight they almost look like loads of little men with helmets!

Frailejones in the paramo

Then we went on to San Antonio de Ibarra which is famous for it’s wood pieces and I bought Tati’s birthday present… I was wondering what on earth to get her, and I found a beautiful wooden frame and I’m going to put in a picture of her two daughters! Yeay! Sorted!
So yep, that’s about it for this week…
Keep well! Me xx

chocolate, cards, cars...

2005-08-30T16:49:00.000-07:00

Charlie
So this last week, i went to see charlie and the chocolate factory, and i loved it!!! Though i did find Johnny Depps’s Willy Wonka a little too Austin-powers at points!! Also saw lots of trailers for movies I now want to see, Papa se volvio loco (Dad went mad), Bewitched (the 60s TV show), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the new Harry Potter. Which to my point of view all look really good! But I'm not sure if they come out here before I come back…hope so coz it’s more than half price to go the cinema here than it is in old blighty!!

Volunteers
So, as ever the volunteers we have keep changing, pamela’s 6 weeks are up so she’s back off to the states this week, I CANT believe how quick it’s gone! The other peeps with me are Siobhan (Irish, got another month and a half), Jean (Nrth Irish, a week), Anna (Irish, a week or so), Lisa and Joosha (Dutch, one week more – had a very interesting conversation with them trying to explain about the catholics and the virgin mary, and other christians – tough in english, let alone when all are speaking through a second language!!), and Pascal --- Pascal is from the same volunteering organization as was Anne, from Germany, and he’s going to be living (!!!) in Remar for the next year!! So I reckon I shall be handing over my English classes baton to him!

Summer’s over..
and winter has come early, or so it seemed - we had the first rain in ages, and it wasn’t just rain, it was a SERIOUS storm – lightning, thunder, hail and everything!!! It obviously wasn’t as bad as what some of Europe has been facing recently, but it was bad enough to ruin a textile factory – the hail broke the roof!!! So it must’ve been pretty serious!

Generosity…
I was really struck by the immediate response of Siobhan and Jean to the need for new cups for the kids… they literally jumped at the chance to help out! Something I could really learn from! When somebody asks me like that, out of the blue, and like I’m the only hope, I feel really pressured and I don’t like it, I like to give on my terms --- hmm! Mustn't 'overspiritualise' giving…

Last-minute last-minute trip
So last-minute our info wasn’t correct, and so last minute that in the end, I had to get ready in 15 mins (including shower and pack bag), which actually meant I forgot my PJs, though not my toothbrush! The trip was down to Riobamba with Maria Augusta and her family, supposedly to catch the train for ‘The devils nose ride’…but as it turns out, the info Maria Augusta had from her friend was out of date (and my book was correct), and the train didn’t leave of saturdays. So, we thought, never mind we’d redeem the trip by going to see Chimborazo, but then we missed the turn-off, and went way past!! So we gave up on that as well and stopped in Ambato to have lunch with David (fellow strider) instead… which was cool, and we had some DELICIOUS icecreams!

Cards ‘over’..
So I finished the week with a rather sore wrist (2 days ‘full’ writing), and it turns out we had nowhere near a thousand cards, but 598!!! Well we would have had over 700 if they hadn’t taken a load to send to people who sponser some of the kids! But hey ho, what we’ve managed will make a difference, and we did also make 500 bookmarks! And they look fab!

Other news
I was most upset to read in the newspaper this week, my ‘worst fears’ were confirmed, that Reggaetón has made it to British soil!! I knew it was almost inevitable (whilst Anne was still here, her friends had told here it had arrived in Germany) but held out a small hope that the Brits wouldn’t like it, but apparently Daddy Yankee has arrived --- ahhhhh!!!!!!!!!
And poor me, news is that something disagreed with me on sunday, so spent the night vomiting and monday in bed! Ai de me…
till next time :)

Bolivia fotos

2005-08-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

The bus crossing the lake!!! glad i wasn't on it! just a wee bit scary!

Arty view of Lago Titicaca from Copacabana beach

The Striders i went to see in Bolivia, Rosy, Niki and James

Me with a giant butterfly on my finger.... can you tell i'm anxious?? (oo this is in Ecuador, Mindo)

Lack of sleep!

2005-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Well hello and welcome to some more jo waffle!! So here’s what’s happened this week in the life of jo!

Off to camp
Monday I found out that yes, the people-what-say-in-Remar, wanted me to go on camp! So wednesday I left my house laden with sleeping bag and clothes to head off to camp!! We spent 3 days in a wee ‘finca’ (sort of country holding thingy, can’t think of the exact word in English, but you get what I mean right?!) about an 1 ½ north of quito, where it was pretty cold and where the loss of my beautiful red snow jacket was keenly felt!!!
We were 80 in all, some 67 kiddies!!! Aahhhhhhh!!! No it was fine, and not as crazy as one might think!! It was arranged by the social workers that work with Remar and the edu pscychologist… but to be honest I was abit disappointed for the kids… there were 2 lasses, trainee social workers, and they’d supposedly arranged a programme of activities, which never really seemed to materalise! Hmmm!! But we had a good time… I was ‘put in charge of’ the teenagers, some 33 but thankfully it didn’t work out that I had to entertain them all, phew!!! But man, teenagers are a special bunch, I really admire youth workers!!! but I think they enjoyed themselves! We were generally hanging around the site, playing volley, walking around or whatever but on thursday morning, we took an outing to Las Cascadas de Peguche (Peguche Waterfalls) and the water was FREEZING!! But the kids quite happily got in and soaked themselves, and didn’t seem to be too fussed to find themselves shivering uncontrollably! I just went in up to my shins, there was NO WAY I was going to put on my swimmers!! Despite the cold, they really seemed to enjoy it! SO although when I compared the camp to the ones I’ve done with CCHF (innercity London kids) it paled in comparison, the kids did enjoy themselves –especially all the sweet things they got stuffed with!! And I enjoyed myself too, but it’s weird well, I felt like I’d been away for AGES!! Wonder if that was cos of the tiredness?
Oo funny moment, on the way back from the waterfalls, they gave us a lolly and Maria Alexandra who was sat on my lap (6yrs) and was misbehaving so I threatened to give her a ‘chupetaso’ (wack of the head with my lollipop), she said oh no tia, alla come piojos (there you’ll eat nits!!), I burst out laughing!! It was just sooo funny that she was making a joke about her nits! Is that funny, or is it just me??

Sleepover
So I got home late fri afternoon and had just enough time to do my washing before heading out to a girly sleepover of the gels in my church! We had a great time but I was falling asleep all evening, then when finally we turned out the lights at 3.30am having watched 13 to 30 (with the Alias woman, which I found well funny, which the gels found funny! Don’t you just love cheese! - hmm. ) I just couldn’t sleep for all my tiredness – well it wasn’t helped by the heavy breathers! The rest of sat was spent hanging out, chatting, eating and trying to fight off the sleep until the evening when we had a goodbye gathering for 2 brothers who on wednesday fly to Canada to live and continue their studies! I finally got home at 11pm, totally falling asleep and crawled into bed for some much awaited (and much needed) shut-eye!

Other news: cards are plodding along, we’re not gonna make the 1000 but that’s partly coz they don’t want to buy any more card, so there’s not much I can do about that!! My time here is slip, slip, slipping away! Aahhhh!!! ‘Everyone’s’ saying don’t go, stay, but I know my time is up --- there’s only one that knows if I’ll ever come back!
Keep wells me xxx

grr

2005-08-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

just to let yous know... can't get into my email at the mo...hence lack of reply if you've sent me an email! second day running that it won't let me sign in, hope it sorts itself out soon!! very annoying! xx

no title! out of creativity

2005-08-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

well, hello and welcome to this week's blog... reckon it'll be an even shorter one than last weeks

cards, cards, cards and sore wrists
still working hard on the order of 1000 - don't reckon we're gonna reach it, the 'girls' aren't very enthusiastic, and they're not always on card-making! but we'll see where we get to! i spent alot of my week writing the verses on the bookmarks which left me with a very sore wrist. ' just from writing?' you might say ... but oo noo, don't think i'm feeble, it's a special sort of writing which requires alot of wrist work - intrigued??!!

tati regreso
thursday tati and the family got back from holiday in colombia--- though i didn't see them till friday morning ---and the as ever gorgeous estefania gave me a lovely 'i'm home' present - baby sick down my top!! yeay!!! oo and tati has agreed that i can go during the week at the end of the month on a wee once in a lifetime trip into the jungle... dun, dun, der...

feriado (a.k.a public holiday)
august 10, Independence Day, celebrates Ecuador's first independence uprising which occured in Quito 1809 though was unsuccessful... if any such date falls during the week, the goverment doesn't let people have that day off but they move it to the nearest friday, so friday was 'feriado'... though i actually went in as usual to Remar coz of this big card-order! Maria Augusta just happened to phone up Tati and said to her 'doesn't Joanna know she doesn't have to come in today?' . so friday was work as normal but saturday was more holiday-like -- we spent it at the house of maria augusta having a 'parrillada' (a.k.a. BBQ) and i came to the rather ridiculous conclusion that at these things there is just far too much meat!!!

well that's it, not very exciting i'm afraid--though this week i'm off for 3 days with Remar on a camp which should be fun and interesting (Tati's sort of putting me in charge of the teenage gels from our house! hmmm!!!) well, love to you all!! me xx

Moving on...

2005-08-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

Street talk
Well, this week(or rather 'last') i had the strangest and the sweetest of all my street encounters…
I was waiting at a zebra crossing for the lights to turn red, I was watching the cars to see when they slowed, and I heard this little voice say ‘Como se llama?’ (what is your name?) and I turned my head to see what was going on with a ‘ey?’ and there was this wee little girl standing beside me, looking at my in an extremely inquisitive manner… she repeated. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Joanna’ I replied, ‘Y tu?’ (and you?) and the little girl replied ‘Jasmine’… what a beautiful name I said, looking up to see if the lights were changing… ‘where are you going? She continued.. ‘To my house’… She started to ask ‘Usted es de los Estados?’ (you’re from the USA?) (NOOOOOOOOO) just as the lights changed and as I begin to cross the road I reply ‘from England’… ‘oh?’… and there our conversation stops. It was such a surreal experience that I walked away with a huge big grin on my face, it just amazed me how bold this wee child was, and how inquisitive and uninhibited, to start asking a foreigner who intrigued her, questions. She can’t have been more than 6 years old!!

Work, work, work
So I was back to work with a vengeance on the card-making business! We’ve got to have ready for the beginning of September 1000 cards and 500 bookmarks for the Pastor of Remar Ecuador to take to the big Remar conference being held in Spain… having spent the majority of the week sorting and fixing, telling the girls what needs to be done, I finally managed to do the big count of what we have… just under 500 cards!! Hmmm!!! There is A LOT more to be done!! Ooo---- but this week we’ve worked almost exclusively on the bookmarks which are pretty much done, I think there’s about 30 to do! So that’s something!!!
It’s good to be back in the cards this time, I’m more relaxed after such a long break from it…and although I’m missing being with the kids, it’s good to spend time with some of the teenagers, and we’re roped in some of the volunteers to help as well!! Robbie’s now gone off to Peru, but Pamela’s still with me, and Siobhan from Ireland has just arrived (and will be with us 2 months at least), and we’ve also an Ecuadorian lass, Cristina, whose doing some ‘social work’ hours for Uni… so all is going well!

MINDO::: land of butterflies
So Saturday Pam and I took a trip to Mindo, a wee ‘cloudforest’ 2 and ½ hours west of quito…. My guide book said it looked rather like an Alpine village transplanted into the tropics - to be honest, i couldn't see the connection!! but hey ho... we took a 4omin walk in the hot sun from the village to a butterfly sanctuary... and i had one sit on my finger... it was fine (though i was slightly nervous not being a great lover of insects!!) until the point where i wanted it to get off my finger and it wouldn't, then i started to panic a bit... my interactions with bugs have to be on my terms!!! we had lunch watching hummingbirds dart around in front of our table, which was actually really quite amusing with all their antics, especially the 'bully' who kept bumping into the rest like a crazy dodg'um car ride to stop them from getting a drink! And i was impressed with the level of the sound they make with their wings, i.e. loud!! After that Pam and I took a 'tube' trip down the river... sort of equivalent of rafting for shallow/rocky rivers... basically you go down in a rubber ring tied to 5 others (in a flower-like shape). It was good fun!! only thing was, waiting to get in the river, i got bitten, and i mean REALLY bitten by some mean little black bugs in the sand! i have 18 bites on my left leg, and 13 on my right! and they itch!!! But other than that, it was a great day out!

Generally I’m feeling a lot better after my experience, not how I was before which is in some ways better as I’m wiser, though slightly more cautious which makes life a bit more difficult, i'm definitely paranoid but getting on with things! ‘Sad point’, the 3 english lads came back just for the day to visit us (they’d traveled to Peru), and they went sunday, when they were back I realized how much I had appreciated them being around – I’m gonna miss them, they’re a real breath of fresh air, loved their very English boy banter!!
Well, tis all for now my beloved ones…
Me xx

Life is tough...

2005-08-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

It was just the other day that I emailed a friend in response to her question as to how I was feeling about having to stay longer than I had planned originally, whether I was pleased or ready to go home… at the beginning of the week I said I was more than happy to stay, I’m very content here and I love my work and the people I know but by the end of the week this had changed and I had even several times thought I just want to go home NOW!

So what happened?
So, as you’ll have read from last week, I got mugged, I spent one day sort of dazed then got back to my usual self. That was until wednesday night…

I had arranged to meet up with my EJE (the church youth weekend) ‘family’ sisters, Mariela and Diana at CCI one of the shopping centre near my house. We met and decided to go to a café which is in another centre just down the road. We were just starting to walk down, deep in conversation and I heard a fist slap a hand. At that moment I felt the most incredible sense of evil in my chest and looked to see what it was – the girl who’d mugged me with a load of other people, and although I didn’t see her well, I just knew it was her. After that I couldn’t really attend to the conversation and it wasn’t until we got to the restaurant that I told my friends what had happened…

Understandably, I think, I felt/have felt/do feel still very shaken… to know that these people frequent my area is upsetting! The actual mugging was fine, a ‘freak’ event, even if it was close to my house – but to know that these people could be watching me at any moment, planning to ‘get me’ is just almost too much to bear. I’m taking steps to reduce the likelihood that they see me, like I won’t be going to either of those shopping centres for a long time, like I won’t be walking anywhere near the area as far as is possible, and not going out in the evening…But to be honest, I have been facing a real battle against fear and have found myself crying lots – to know that there are people out there, close by, who only want to do you damage is horrible!!! Though Armando pointed out that the girl probably only ‘threatened’ me in that manner so as to say ‘ don’t you dare dob me in to the police’, that it probably wasn’t a ‘we’re gonna get you again’…but still. I spent 3/4 days REALLY low, finding comfort and strength in the Word, pulling out verses from places and writing them on cards to remind me that I have a God who is all powerful, that I don’t need to fear anything… it was sooo hard but i think i'm through the woods now!! phew!!

Other news…
Last week wasn't a great week for other news either, discovered my granny has a problem with her heart which the doctor says is inoperable and it don’t look good… and also a wee lad from the boys home had a REALLY bad fall from the second floor terrace onto his head and is in hospital in a really bad way, though the awesome news today is that he seems to be recovering well, he's conscious and eating!! Yeay!!! But in spite of all the ‘mishaps’, work is good…although I have had thoughts of leaving Ecuador I don’t really want to coz I love me work … So last week we finally finished all we could in the nursery before the architect finishes the roof and puts on the door, which is very satisfying… and I’ve got 2 new volunteers as well who are lovely, Pamela, 32, USA and Robbie, 19, UK…I spent a morning cleaning windows with Pamela and she’s just so eager to learn Spanish and is trying so hard, and is so willing just to help with anything which is a great help!!
The kids are lovely (although cheeky!) as usual… had a lovely conversation with a couple of the girls about my time in Bolivia explaining differences between the 2 countries (well I enjoyed it, I hope they did, though it might have been one of those 'we'll-just-humour-the-adult-as-they-ramble-on' type conversations for them!!!). I brought everyone in ‘my house’ back some choc from Bolivia which the kids enjoyed, but what is annoying is that they really look a gift horse in the mouth – you give them something and immediately they ask for more!!! Never satisfied, this attitude makes me not want to give because they need to learn to appreciate what they have and to respect people. Though it wasn’t all of them – some of them said a big thankyou and gave me hug… Although at times they drive me mad, I love them and I’ll miss them lots when I leave!!

So life goes on, we keep fighting!!! Oodles of love to yous all!!
As always, me xxxxxxxxx

Challenges in Ecuador and beyond...

2005-07-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

Where to start?
At the end of the last blog I was telling you about the ‘bum pinch’… well after that came a rather unexpected challenge… of just riding in a trole bus. I found myself getting extremely anxious, panicky even, on the packed trole, anticipating being harassed again with every slight brush… it really was horrible to feel like that, being on edge all the time but I got over it with God’s help!

Buses…
Bolivia provided an interesting challenge in terms of their bus service!! They seem to be road-block happy… the number of times I’d heard my friends talk about blocks and somehow didn’t think it would happen to me… but it did happen, and just when I had a reasonably tight schedule. After visiting Lago Titicaca and the Isla del Sol (which was very lovely), I was getting a bus back to La Paz with an hour and a half in lieu to catch the night bus to Cochabamba where my strider chums are… all went well, got back from my boat trip (which I thought was a bad idea to begin with as I very quickly brought back up my breakfast, but turned out to be quite good! Worth the £1.75), got my 6pm bus, but then, disaster struck. The road between Tiquina (where you all have to get off the bus, and it goes across on a wee raft, you on a boat for 10p) and La Paz was blocked for a fiesta, so we had to take a roundabout cross-country route which involved firstly, a few getting off the bus so it could make a tight turn, then secondly, in another part of the road we all had to get off, as it was too dangerous (!!!!) for us to stay on it ! We finally arrived at 12.15am!! I’d seriously missed the last bus , didn’t have a hostel, couldn’t contact my friends, I was gutted!!! But I did manage to find a hostel, got a room, and promptly burst into tears from the disappointment, frustration and sheer '¿y ahora?' (and what do i do now?)!!! slept and it all turned out fine… I rung Niki at 7.30 the next morning just as she and james (strider from Uruguay) were about to catch a bus to meet me, so they went back to their beds! And I went to catch a bus!! So I finally arrived in Cochabamba at 3pm on sunday which meant I had less than 24hours to catch up with James – which was a shame but we made the most of the time we had!

It was a dark night…
And the final challenge came once I was back in quito… I’d just left the house to go and say goodbye to Anne before she flew back to Alemania… walking just a few minutes from my house, to get a taxi… and boom, I get mugged!!! Would you believe it?!!! I couldn’t! I was so utterly dazed and phased that I didn’t feel scared when the guy pulled a knife, I didn’t even think of just taking out my wallet and giving them my money, but they got it anyway, and (most annoying of all) made off with my ‘snow’ jacket (which also annoying still had my toothbrush and paste in it)! I didn’t have a clue what to do afterwards, I continued walking the direction I was going for a minute, but then realized what I was doing and walked rather rapidly back to my house… they’d taken my wallet so I didn’t have my keys, I didn’t have my ecua-parents mobile numbers, and I didn’t have even a cent to ring them if i did have their numbers… so I just sat on my ‘doorstep’ until Paquita and Armando arrived half an hour later…
So I must say that that rather took the wind out of me… I was full of questions and worries, and felt pretty shaken – I shan’t be going out in the evening again alone!! but you know one can't live in fear, one has to get on with living!!

What I got up to…
So yeah, back to my holiday in Bolivia, I saw the famous Lago Titicaca, which was impressive, just the sheer size of it… to get to Copacabana we were going round the side of the Lake for 2 hours!! Then I had thought that after spending a few days with my fellow striders in Cochabamba I would go to the salt flats… but once I was with my friends, I decided I’d stay the whole time with them – they were afterall the main reason for the booking of my trip, not sightseeing!!! So I spent 4 full days with Niki and Rosy… visiting their projects, hanging out – even got a chance to get creative, creating 2 new designs for Niki’s ‘Freehands’ business www.vivabolivia.org/freehands
It was really lovely to hang out with james for a wee bit, with the girls and their friends… it was a great holiday – though taking the journey back to la paz on the night bus wasn’t easy – I hardly slept a wink! My last day in Bolivia I spent with Remar Bolivia, and they were sooo lovely, so hospitable, so open, taking me to see the kids home and the couples home…felt very at home! By the end of it they were even trying to match-make me and ‘kidnap’ me from Ecuador!

Randoms…
Oo random bits and bobs… on the flight to Bolivia, they showed a programme about the history of the London underground!! Bizarre!!! Also saw a Jamie Cullum video, him looking slightly ridiculous pushing round a grand piano! In Bolivia I saw the long lost relative of Gumdrop – remember him? It was also well bizarre to see David Beckham’s face plastered on a wall – that pesky globalisation!! urgghhh!!

Patience run out…
Man, just before going to Bolivia, I was just sooo fed up with men’s comments and people’s stares that I just could not cope with it anymore! I was really hoping that Bolivia would be different, and it was!!! What a needed respite, I still got a few comments but the people are nothing like here!! However now I’m back and the stares have started again, and to be honest I’m just so fed up with it… I love my work, the friends I have etc, but I just can’t stand ‘people’, and the machista culture! It is just getting too much, can’t wait to be back in England so that I’m normal!!! Or maybe I should get a bottle of self-tan??!!! And dye my hair darker!!! Not sure it would work though!!

So there are challenges, but I’m overcoming them, and fighting on!! just over 2 months and i'm back!!
Love to you all
Me xxx

bit of everything

2005-07-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

well, what a week it's been! i don't know where to start!

paint update
well the plan was to finish the wall paintings today, but it ended up being just me and mari-ester - we didn't even finish one, but it IS looking well good! so tati has said to finish it with the other volunteers, and i've a great idea for the outside!! watch this space! mon/tues and bit of wednesday/thurs i spent painting the outside, the green has turned out to be somewhat psychadelic, but it's 100x better than what it was before!! the outside is now ready for stg 2 ' decoration!'

indignant
man, yesterday, i had my worst male chauvinism moment yet, that left me utterly indignant! i was on a packed 'Ecovia' (a sort of bus), and just felt really uneasy about a particular guy behind me... i thought i felt my hair being touched, but decided it could just have been his cap moving by accident... but then, as he got off for his stop, he PINCHED BY BUTT!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! i was so indignant, i shouted 'oiga' (which means sort of 'well, look here') and gave him a slap on the back - as you all know that was quite something for me to do as i'm not an aggressive person - it was just SOOO rude! and what made it even worse was that no-one else on the ecovia paid the slightest bit of attention to my plight - i left at the next stop virtually fuming at the sheer lack of respect and cowardice of that man......arrrghhhhh!!! otherwise this week, i got a 'hey you'... this i WILL NOT miss!

coldplay
man i feel i've missed out on so much this week - was keeping up with the LIVE8 on the internet and all the campaigning surrounding the G8 in scotland...then i heard on the radio 'Coldplay's new song, and just felt so out of touch with home!! but the great thing about Coldplay is that they carry you right back to england when you hear the beautiful whines of Mr Martin - there's something very quintessentially english about their sound, i can't put my finger on it, but i reminds of home!

toilet duty
monday afternoon tati roped us (as volunteers) into maning the loos at a big precaher event held in the olimpic stadium... remar had been given the opportunity to be responsible for the loos which also meant the 10cents charged came to us too -amazingly with 2 nights, they raised $600!!!!woo woo... it was very cold work though, and we didn't stay all the time, but during the time i was there i got almost frozen to the bone, which wasn't good for my cold!

other bits
wednesday night i went to see some live jazz in a square in the historics centre, as the suggestion of a fellow volunteer from canada... so we met up there, and i met a whole bunch of the other people from his volunterring organisation all working in different projects. it was a concvert of about an hour and a half, out in the open air, and it rocked!!! not that i actually know much about jazzmusic, but i enjoyed it, and thought the guesting guitarist and flautist particularly awesome!!
i've been put somewhat dubiously in charge of the other volunteers in remar, which is a little hard - i don't really want to be 'in charge' but hey ho...though it's alright at the mo as there's plenty of practical stuff to do. oo comedy thing, there's a bunch of guys from oregon supposedly finishing the outside washing unit, and they keep going on a out how cool my accent is! what accent i say!!! and we're also noticing differences between our englishes, for example i taught them 'swish' and 'nick' (as in to nick something) - which is quite amusing! also one guy said that he loves 'Hyacinth Bucket' - remember her? He find s it utterly hilarious! Hyacinth, the great British export! hmmm... hee hee
yesterday i had a few slices of what i believe is the worlds biggest pizza!! it was huge!!! like over 15" big!! humongous!!

school
so school is now offically out for the summer... wednesday we had a 'party' in whichh the fourth graders said goodbye to the fifth graders, then on thursday, we had the offical end of year ceremony which was quite sweet, and i gotquite emotional when me gels did a dance in front of everyone! i was so proud! it'll be weird not to have school for the next almost 2 months!! have to think of things to do with the kids, so that they aren't bored/ don't get up to mischief as thye're wont to do!!

oo time i running out, just to let you know, i'm off to BOlivia this week for 9 days, so there won't be an update i don't reckon for a little while! but don'y you worry i'll be back with a vengange to waffle away!
oodles of love xxx

Shock

2005-07-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

man, just have to write something!
so when the 3 english lads arrived at remar this morning, they told me, 'there's been bomb attacks in London' what?!! so off they nip to the internet to find out more... my immediate thought was of my brother, i had a peace in my heart that he was ok, but i still wanted to make sure so rung my mum... as i thought of the possibility of my brother dying, my eyes welled up and i was like i couldn't cope with him dying! but then i thought my God is my rock and with him i can cope with anything!! but praise God my brother is fine, though i have yet to hear from my other london friends...
just been reading all the news on the bbc web, man it's so rough! i can't imagine what it must be like for you guys over there, my heart and prayers are with you... i love you all LOTS!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
i was touched by a comment that Blair said that the majority of muslims are as much in disagreement with what has happened as others... i feel that it is REALLY important that that is said, as i fear greatly that racism against middle eastern/asian people will greatly increase in the UK as a result of this, and that makes my heart 'bleed'...
may the Lord be with you all! xxx

Paint splattered...

2005-07-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

well, this week has well and truly been a week of painting!! everyday!!! though today was the most exciting!! some 'youth' from my church came to help me paint murals in the nursery, which was really good but we're only about half way through!!! we were late getting started coz of a few setbacks , so i reckon we actually did quite well! so far all that's finished is a winnie pooh, a roo, and started are clouds, eeyore, dora the explora (emmie!!), and a ABC mural designed by yours truly!! reckon we'll need to draw a few more things too! i'm well pleased with how its turning out, and everyone seems to like the colours i've chosen!!! ceci said it's Jo in Changing Rooms! now maybe there's a future career for me??!! hmmm....

schools out...
almost.... next thursday is the offical last day and we're having a special end of year ceremony, which means my english classes have been somewhat disrupted this week coz of rehearsals! which has been somewhat frustrating, but the most frustrating thing is that i'd planned my ''fun'' last classes for next week and there's no ounce of lesson time at all for any subject - grrr, and they were going to be good too! grr :) ... though i must say it'll be nice to have a break from teaching, it does grind one down at times when your students are so unenthusiastic!! that said, sweet moment, one afternoon, mayra 'cornered' me and got me to play english teachers (!!!) - she tested me and i her - and she's remembered an awful lot - but then she is in 5th grade! but that was encouraging!!

youth time...
it's been really cool to spend time with my ecua chums!!! feel very blessed to know them and to be accepted wholeheartedly by them!! last sunday we had a movie evening and watched 'Collatoral' - what a bizarre movie... and gee, a grey tom cruise!! he always did like to get himself a running scene in each movie he does! and i was well pleased my chums agreed to help me paint in remar, and they're up for finishing off next sat too! tomorrow we're off for a picnic which will be really lovely!

tremors..
ooo yesterday we had some more tremors... nothing big, i don't think i would've realised what they were if someone hadn't said, it just doesn't seem to register in my brain!! and it felt rather how one's feels when one lives near a railway line, and a train goes past - weird!!!
oo some VERY english weather this week - freezing cold!! apparently got down to 1oC which is VERY unusual for here, and the snow on the volcanoes has sneaked further down their sides! this is the kind of weather i need in my last few weeks, so that the shock of abit of autumn then winter when i get back won't be so hard!!?

escaped...
well we seem to be having a spate of escapings of the teenage girls which is rather upsetting. Mitizi ran off a few weeks back, but we've had contact from her which is encouraging, though we'd obviously prefer she'd come back - she's been in remar 3 years, so her escape is all the more keenly felt! also Olivia has done a runner - we think it's tied up with some young fella, it's such a shame coz she's obviously left school (in exam time!) and we don't know how/where she is... then Jessica also escaped back to the prison with her mum, so although we know where she is, if she's in prison, she can't continue with her schooling... argghhhh!!! this sort of thing is part and parcel of this kind of work, but each time it happens, it is shocking, disappointing, heart-breaking - but God is bigger!

so there's a wee quick blurb of my week! not got much time as i'm writing this online as the home compu is broken! hope you're all REALLY well, and enjoying good summer weather wherever you happen to be reading this! oodles of love xxxxxxxx
p.s. don't forget you can post comments/questions etc about what i've written by clicking on the comment thingy just below!

fotos, at last!!!

2005-06-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

Estefania

mariela, isabel, carmita, paquita, armando, mum, dad, tim, on the way to otavalo (may 28th)

just before the tears!!! saying goodbye! (june 9th)

yes, it is me officer! bye bye ecuador!

cake face!!! (birthday's ecuadorian style) june 1st

me and little estefania on my birthday!!!

so here are a couple of photos!! yeay!! at last i've managed it!! thanx to mim!!!

¡Viva la waffle!

2005-06-25T15:10:00.000-07:00

Oo lots of bits to waffle about this week…

Project Guarderia go, go, go… (nursery)
Well… sunday I put my finishing touches to my designs for the nursery – I spent ages working on a ABC chart in the form of a jigsaw, and I hope it turns out well!! On Thursday we (the other volunteers and I ) started the work off, by sanding down all the walls! I felt like a was in abit of a whirlwind that morning as I was running to and from my 2 classes to put mi mano a la obra (put my hand to the work) as well! The six of us got it all sanded in a morning!! And I started on giving everything a wipe down, but only one ‘cubicle’ got done.. two more to go!! We (a new volunteer – Ecuadorian lass and I) tried to go buy the paint on Friday, Tati told us that the name of the shop was ‘Multicolor’, we searched everywhere around where Tati said it was, asking people but we couldn’t find it!! We got back and said so, and Tati said no it was called EXPO color, but was a multicoloured building – argghhhh!!! So, we’ll try again on monday, and hopefully start painting the basic colours! I’m very excited about seeing how it will all turn out!! will be painting murals next sat with some youthy types from my church!

Impertinent questions…
Man… people just don’t hold back… I was catching the trole home the other day, and I noticed the guy behind me in the queue being creepily curious in checking me out in the queue. Then once on the trole came the question ‘¿usted no es española?’ (you’re not Spanish are you?)… I replied rather cagily and bluntly ‘No.’… trying not to look at all interested in continuing the conversation… but he persisted '¿esta trabajando aqui?' (are you working here?)… ‘Yes.’ I replied (how anyone can’t take a hint from such cagey answers, I don’t know!)… so he continued '¿donde?' (where)… I replied even more cagily (coz obvisouly you don’t want a complete stranger to know where you work! Well, not here anyway when one’s a foreigner and not in such peculiar circumstances!) ‘In a fundacion.’ … and thankfully he finally got the hint of my cagey answers!! He looked abit like a foreigner, about 40 years old, but whoever it was, I really don’t like strangers making conversation with me!

Marcia
Well, that’s what I’m going to call her… it’s not her real name, one of the girls in Remar… had some very touching moments with her in breaktime this week… I’ve always tried to say to her things like she’s pretty, and she always negates them… and this week we had time for a good wee chat about self-image. When one says to her she’s pretty, she always says no I’m ugly, but there’s always a shy smile on her face, which to be signifies she needs to be told it so much more until she believes it. She’s abit of a tom-boy and can be very aggressive, so doesn’t always get along with people… but under all the bravado, she is a really lovely girl.
Oo I’m going to explain to yous what I call my treasure chest theory (have I told yous before?). Each of these girls (indeed all girls, and boys) has a treasure chest… and whatever people say about each girl is stored away in this chest… If all they hear is ‘you’re no good’ ‘you’re worthless’ ‘you’re ugly’ ‘you’re dirty’, this chest gets dilapidated and horrible, its ugly and becomes a source of great distress… but, on the other hand one can fill it so that it is a beautiful, shiny, precious treasure chest decorated in many precious jewels that lights up ones whole being. So what I want to do is try to fill each girl’s treasure chest with these precious stones… basically I want to help increase their self-esteem where it’s been (or is being) ripped down by the things other people/children say… So, I had a good chance to talk with this girl about identity, and how the most important thing we need to know is that as girls, God thinks we’re beautiful, and that he smiles and dances so much over us (zeph 3.17!!)…all these girls need to know this!

Classes…
Man, at times they are so hard – when you’re faced with a bunch of grumpy kids, it might just be one or two – who don’t like anything you give them to do, who just moan and moan!! And it’s so frustrating, that however many times you go over something, the next time you ask, they don’t remember a thing!!! And they don’t make an effort to learn either! Another part of the problem is that they get all defeatist if they don’t understand straight away, and it can be quite hard to get them out of it… but we get there in the end!! Oo and it was very sweet, the little un’s yesterday were asking ‘have we got English?’ and when I said yes… it was a chorus of ‘yeahhhh!!’… though I didn’t actually get to give them their class (it was gonna be 'The wheels on the bus') – we had a teacher’s planning meeting for the end of year celebrations… which is a week earlier than I thought it was!

La bebe
Update on Estefania… I spent monday morning with her and Beatrice in the hospital for her monthly checkup… it really is a crazy system here… as they didn’t actually do anything… all the tests have to be done in a clinic outside, and as well, a full body x-ray has to be done eslewhere– one wonders what they can actually do in the children’s hospital. But good news is, that the ‘tumour’ doctor (I’m sure there’s a specific name but I don’t know it!) thinks the tumour from the outside appears to be decreasing in size, which he says is rather unusual but obviously extremely welcome!! Though the not so good news is that she has an infection where they operated on her arm, so she’s on anti-biotic’s and has to go back and see the doctor next week to check that it’s clearing up well or it could cause problems.

Oo random bits… been adverts on the TV recently, telling people how to take precautions against dengue fever – just basic health and hygiene advice but obviously needed. had a wander of the historic centre, and went to a wee museum about money in ecuador (bit geeky i know, but it only cost 30p!!!) adn there i discovered that ecuador's old currency the 'Sucre' was imprinted in Birmingham - of all the places in the world! weird!! and oooooo received the most exciting news I’ve had in ages last saturday, that two of my fav people are going to get married to each other!! My dearest liz and matt (from uni)… I’m well excited and well happy for them both, and look forward so much to getting back to England to join in the celebrations!!! Woo woo!! Well, that’s about it for this week!
God bless yous all in your places!
Me xxx

Earthquake...well nearly!

2005-06-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

Oo lots has happened this week – not least I discovered my poor family got stuck in Guayaquil for 17 hours!!! They ended up arriving a day later than they should’ve done and with their first stomach upsets of their holiday! The advice is, don’t fly Iberia! Hmmm… poor things.

EJE
My weekend was extremely different to that of my parents!! I spent it in church – now that might sound abit weird!!! But it was great fun! It was a programme called EJE – Encuentro Juvenil en el Espiritu – Youth meeting with the Spirit – now I’m suer that still sounds weird!!! Basically it was a weekend of ‘listening to our hearts’ (sounds abit hippy) and sharing about various issues – relationships with friends, family etc… we were put into wee groups called families and we all cried lots about various experiences…. Not sure I’m explaining it very well but it was really good, and they kept giving us loads of surprises – posh dinner when we thought we were going to bed, breakfast with a place full of gifts – from friends and from family. I was really touched as Pedro, one of the ‘’youth’’ had sneakily talked to my mum about it all, and she’d left a wee gift… and I thought that was all, but then at another point we had to close our eyes and put our hands out to receive something – which was an ‘envelope’, and inside letters from one’s mum, dad which were really touching letters about how they loved us, what they say in us, memories they had of us, and how proud they were of us. Then they surprised us with another envelope, this time with letters from brothers/sisters and friends – I was so touched that so many of the ‘youth’ in my church had written me a wee message – it was so lovely, I felt so loved and special, and I realized that all my prayers and those of others had been answered – that God has blessed me with some true Ecuadorian friends!!! Yeay! So I had a fantastic weekend apart from very little sleep as a girl in the room I was in was snoring! Grrr

Back to work!
So fully got back into work on Monday, full steam ahead with my English classes – which have overall been fun but pretty trying at times!!! Not really involved in the cards anymore, the ‘girls’ are kind of left to their own devices – and as a result, they’ve come up with some awesome new designs of their own which is really encouraging!
Monday Anne turned up to say hello and to sort out some things before heading off traveling proper, and Tati announced she was inviting us to lunch! So at 2pm (and feeling very hungry) off we trundled in taxi, Anne, Tati, Valentina (her 4yr old daughter) and Estefania (the baby) to ‘Crepes y Waffles’, and Diego (Tati’s husband) met us there. It was a lovely lunch and I felt so touched that they’d made the effort!! And then on Wednesday Tati gave me a present, which I really wasn’t expecting, so with all this, felt very valued which was nice!
Other wise in Remar, we have had an influx of short term volunteers – Adam from Canada arrived before I went on holiday, and he’s here till the end of July, there was Fanny from France (was here for a month, now gone), Kelley from New Jersey (3 weeks now gone), Marco from Switzerland (with us till the end of school), Katie from America (also till the end of school). Most of them have come or are coming just in the morning, and helping in the school – but Thursday two more Canadians Adam and Christine (from Toronto) started to come in the afternoon – and they’ll be here for 3 weeks I think…. So we’ve gone really international – it’s weird to go from being the only volunteer for months to now being one of loads (oo just remembered 2 more guys visited the other day and will be helping for a wee while starting Monday)… and I think more will come and go. Maria Augusta says she’s NEVER seen so many volunteers in all her time helping in Remar (10 years or summat like that), and did suggest that perhaps they didn’t have need of striders any more – which she does have a point, but only in terms of the summer months when loads of foreign students arrive to do their social bit. I reckon when the summer’s over, I’ll go back to being alone – until the new girls arrive!

Sad news…
Sad to hear that during my time away, several children ‘escaped’, ran away from the Fundacion – Mitzi, 16, who’d been in Remar for quite some time, long before I arrived – I was shocked and am wondering why, and where she’s gone!! Then Angelica and her brother Angel, and 2 nephews (remember I told you about them a little while back, how they’d entered) – don’t know what happened there either – apparently their sister had turned up to see them and I reckon it stems from that, but I don’t know! So that’s all abit sad and disheartening, when they were all doing so well!

Earthquake!!
Well you can’t really call it an earthquake, I’m hugely exaggerating, but on Wednesday night at 1.05am, all the countries on this side of south America experienced severe tremors – here in Quito measured 4 on the Richter scale – but in Chile, the worst effected, it was 7 (!!!) and some people died… I’d totally forgotten that it happened until Tati asked me if I’d felt it when I arrived at Remar the following morning. Then I remembered how I’d been woken in the night, feeling EVERYTHING was moving, my body, my bed, the building (!!!), and I remember thinking ‘oh stop it, I want to sleep’ – I was soo full of sleep I didn’t really realize what was happening, and felt no fear whatsoever! Wonder how I’d feel if it happened in the day time. So, I’ve experience my first ever tremor! Ooo

Urgghhh
Low points of the week – walking past some men on the way to Remar and having one shout at me ‘monkey’…hmmm….. then the following day walking to catch the trolley in the Colon and a guy stopped talking to his friends so that as I passed he could say ‘Haylo’ (hello) and try to kiss my cheek – urghh, I felt sick, I mean any stranger to do that but this guy had a severely minging, greasy mullet and was about 40+ years old! The things women have to put up with here!!!

So that’s my week – had a chilled day today, just doing nothing, really needed to rest – and it was such a treat just to be able to lie in bed and read a book for an hour or so!!
Hope you’re all well, I’m gradually getting up-to-date with my emails, just be patient for my reply, I will reply eventually!!
Oodles of love
Me xxx

Whistle-stop tour...

2005-06-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

Oo my, I don’t know where to start!! We were going to set off to Puyo a week ago Sunday… but Paquita woke up feeling extremely nauseas – she immediately thought it was a problem with her heart so the trip was postponed whilst they went off to the hospital… I spent a very tense morning waiting for news which praise the Lord wasn’t bad!! It turns out Paquita was just suffering from vertigo (or so they say in spanish) and that the symptoms are the same – but the doctor ordered she stay in bed, rest, and do no traveling.. so we adapted to a new plan. Sunday we did nothing in the end, but Monday we took a trip to the Middle of the World which was very interesting, I got a certificate for managing to balance an egg on a nail – on the real line there is less gravity (or summat) so an egg can balance and there were other tests we did too to 'prove' it was the real middle of the world!… Tuesday we took a trip to Cotopaxi (Volcano of 5897m), one of the well-known attractions of Ecuador and we did our best do climb up… we managed to get to the refuge but it was hard work!!! Though I did it in 40mins!!! My bro in half an hour and my parents in an hour and 10… I really don’t have the adventurous spirit to go the whole way though – that’s quite a serious undertaking and one has to train!!!

Mis cumpleaños…
Wednesday 1st it was fiesta, fiesta, fiesta!!! We had good fun – Anne and I arranged some olla’s encantadas (the Ecuadorian version of a piñata, though it’s a wee round pot made of clay) which the kids enjoyed though it was abit manic!!! We also made them some wee party bags which they liked… my family really enjoyed getting to know Remar abit… they went off to eat and shop after the party and I stayed the rest of the day…. At about 3.30 we tried to get people together to share cake for my birthday and for Anne’s goodbye, but there was no-body around!! Though eventually we managed to round a few people up, then the ‘celebration’ began with Tati shoving my head in the cake!! (tradition here!) so then I cleaned myself off, cut up the cake and was JUST about to eat my slice when smack – Nellie smashed an egg on my head!! It was amusing but rather uncomfortable – cold and slimy!!! So then I popped in the shower to wash my hair!! Ivan, the husband of the couple who look after the boys home, it was his birthday too – and Nellie feeling particularly impish got him as he came up the stairs with an egg… poor guy, caught off guard… and he’d just cleaned himself off when up came Nellie again with a cake in her hands (laughing extremely impishly!! Oo she loved it!), and he tried to close himself into a room, but alas he got got!! It was easier for me coz I was fully expecting it and was prepared!! In the evening we had a wee birthday tea with Paquita and Armando then we (my family) went off to Jacchigua – a national ballet, which was awesome!! It’s all based on the indigenas cultures of Ecuador, and all the costumes are traditional – fantastically beautiful colours. It was abit expensive (though not English standard) but definitely worth it and a great birthday treat!!

Off we set…
So we decided to head off to Puyo in the Oriente (jungle, but really only just) on thursday without Paquita as she had a doctors appointment on friday (the plan was she would join us in Guayaquil on sat but as it turned out she got a cold and the doctor said she couldn’t travel – which was very disappointing for all!). along the 5hour route we stopped off looking at waterfalls – one awesomely powerful one called ‘Devil’s cauldron’ and which if you stand by the side of it with your shower gel, you could have a nice shower!!! We also took Ecuador’s longest and highest cable car across a gorge (500m long, 100m high) – to be honest when we first set off, my legs felt rather weak –and I felt real nervous – it’s a LONG way down!!! My dad was saying he was worried it would stop working and we’d be stuck there hanging over night!!! great thought to share!! Though the journey back across was far more enjoyable coz one had more trust in the wee basket!
We spent a day in Puyo - the morning we went white-water rafting on the River Pastaza, which was awesome though really not long enough – our guide said it was higher than usual coz it had rained, hard, ALL night long! I have to said that rafting is my one thrill-seeker outlet…45mins just wasn’t enough (although I ached enough afterwards!). In the afternoon we went to Jardin Botanico Las Orquideas – which was just utterly amazing. This guy has ‘grown’ it from scratch into a proper piece of jungle land, rescuing plants and trees from where the loggers cut down, it’s 25 years old and is just amazing… the size of some of the orchids you just would not believe, tiny, tiny, tiny!!! And what was really good after about a 45 minute wait outside (they lock the gates when there isn’t a spare guide coz people have been entering and stealing the plants), the owner arrived and he was our guide, which was the best!!

Coasting it…
On saturday we headed off to Guayaquil… long drive but beautiful scenery… unfortunately Chimborazo (another famous Ecuadorian Volcano) was largely covered by cloud!! Booo!! My dad was joking with Armando that he didn’t believe there were any high volcanoes/mountains in Ecuador coz they were always covered by cloud… We took a night time stroll on the Malecon (sea front) and went to see the famous slum which has been renovated and completely transformed into something beautiful… next we went up the coast to Puerto Lopez, where in the night we got woken up by a drunk singing outside who I thought when he woke me up was a mariachi band, Mexican, serenading – but my family informed me that no it was just a drunk singing out of tune! Hmmm…. On the way to Puerto Lopez, we stopped off at Montañita which is now becoming a surfing hotspot and my bro had fun trying to catch the waves – one day I’d like to have a lesson I reckon, maybe?! From there we continued up to Bahia, then the next day back to Quito. It was a mammoth trip but great to see it all – the biggest difference from Quito, or indeed the Sierra (highlands) or the Oriente (jungle) was the houses – a lot of people build their houses on stilts and they’re made out of wood – it’s really quite different…

Back in Quito…
So we got back into Quito and me back to my house at 8pm!!! Bit late… wednesday we did a wee bit of Quito sight-seeing and tried to sort out our hire car business, which is all a complete mess – basically the owner is taking us for a ride and charging $590 more than he should!!! So now we have a fight on our hands… it’s a good job I’m here and that I have Ecuadorian friends… coz apparently the owner has done this sort of thing before to foreigners but obviously when they return the cars, they generally leave the next day so there’s nothing they can do about him charging fraudulently but a-ha he’s come a cropper… watch this space to see if this thief gets his just desserts!!!

Nowt else to say, been back in Remar today - it has been a relief to get back to 'normality' after all that’s happened over the past 3 weeks!! It was great to have my family here, I hope they enjoyed themselves, though I’m pretty sure they’re leaving feeling more tired than when they came!
oo news on the baby, Tati and Diego have now offically adopted her so Valen (4) now has a wee sister!! The doctors decided not to operate you like i said in my urgent email coz they felt her wee body couldn't take a 3rd op!! so now she has to go for expensive tests each month for a year when they´ll reassess the situ and try to operate then!

Well i reckon that's enuff for this week’s waffling!! Oodles of love

parents gone....

2005-06-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

hey there,
it's been awhile as this is just a quickie to let you know i'm still here - hoping to get an update on the past 2 weeks written and uploaded tomorrow!
so my parents and bro have left after spending nearly 3 weeks with me... well actually they're still here, waiting in the departure area... it was a slightly tearful goodbye - i was fine but my parents started to cry and whenever everyone's crying that sets me off too, so we left abit bleary eyed!!! next time i see them is october which i'm sure will just fly by!!
ok that's all for now, update soon!
hope the corner of the world you're in is good!
oodles of love
who esle.... xxx

What’s the laziest animal on earth? ..keep reading to find out!

2005-05-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

2 weeks have past… I was trying desperately hard to get to the internet last saturday but events took the opportunity out of my hands and nearly didn't make it today either! This week I’ve been in Galapagos with my family but the week before I was in Remar so I shall start with that…

Remar events
The baby came home! Which was awesome, she came home on thursday… she’s so lovely!! But poor thing she had to have another op on tuesday just gone (not sure of the news yet) because the fatty growth they took out from her arm/chest is growing again, and will continue to grow!! All abit worrying but she’s amazingly strong! Thank you so much for your prayers for her, keep going!
I had an unplanned visit to the prison again, the ladies didn’t recognize me, which isn’t surprisingly as it was quite along while ago that I went! Tati asked me to go so that afterwards we could go on a shopping spree for the ‘guarderia’ (nursery) as the big plastic shop was near the prison… Using money from my parents church we bought a load of stuff to deck out the inside of the nursery – tables, chairs, bins that kind of thing… in a couple of weekends time the ‘youth’ from my church are gonna help me paint it using money from my Chi church which is rather exciting!!
Another great class with the little un’s, they are learning!! Well it’s just the numbers but that’s a start!! And they were trying to join in with the song we were using which was encouraging too… I hope Anne’s getting on well alone and I hope I’ll do ok without her!
Bit o card sorting, now just one young lass working on them which is abit lonely for her – they’ve rather lost the umph they had!! Hmmm… and otherwise on remar I’m getting rather excited about the fiesta… Anne stayed over on friday so that we could put the wee party bags together before our girls day out… more later.

Tears all round…
So friday 20th my parents and brother arrived, albeit an hour late… as we were waiting for them to come through, I felt really nervous – I don’t know why, it was all abit weird… and as I expected their arrival through the doors I felt tears welling up, don’t why either!!! So when I finally saw them and they were stopped by a security door for a moment, it was all too much and the tears flowed… mum came over first and she was crying too, had a lovely long hug – then with dad and he was wet-eyed too!! They were pretty crashed out so we just took them to their villa so they could rest up – but being very, hmm not sure of the word, - well I told them they should rest and not do anything for the day on saturday – but what did I find out when I arrived at their place late sat afternoon after my girls day out? That they’d been painting the town red!! Naughty naughty, and they felt the effects of the physical exertion on sunday!! Everyone says that even if you feel pretty fine, on arriving in Quito you really should do nothing for the first 2 days!

Girls day out
Anne, Anna Maria (the lassy who did the Identity workshop with the girls) and I took out some (was meant to be all) of the adolescents for a day trip out of Remar… we picked them up at 11 and walked just a few minutes down the hill to a wee shop where one can make jewelry… it turned out to be a whole lot more stressful than we imagined!! But we got there in the end, with each girl choosing a design and bead colours – between them they made an assortment of necklaces, bracelets and earrings. We then popped back to the house to pick up the food and off we set to El Parque Metropolitano for a picnic and chill in the park… it was good but after certain attitudes that we experienced from the girls we decided to sit down and have a wee chat, which was really helpful, though painful, for them – they were able to freely express things that had been bugging them, the tensions within the group, and I think we all came out better for it! On the way back we got caught by the chapas (police) for having too many people in the car (11!!!! Hmmm, knowingly law breaking!) – at first the women said that Anna Maria would be off to prison and we were like ‘aahhhh’… but Anne got out and went to talk to the man, explaining we’re from the fundacion, 2 mins from the house, blah, blah, blah, and as she was a female gringo and quite persuasive, we ‘got away with it’…

Galapagos…
Well it’s actually my opinion and not scientific fact, but I think that sea lions are THE laziest animals around – or at least on Galapagos! They just lie there most of the day on the beach, sunning themselves and being very vocal about it! Oo the baby ones are soooo cute!! I’m now a very educated person and can tell you the difference between seals and sea lions – do you know there was one? (several actually!).. So just got back yesterday from 5 days in the Galapagos – a great experience but not without it’s frustrations – the other airport was closed so our itinerary changed… sniff sniff! So as not to bore yous out of your minds I shall just give a quick resume…
Giant tortoises (in the wild!!! Awesome!!), saddle sore (completely unexpected challenge of horse-riding!), seasickness (nuff said!! I’m sure you don’t want details – needless to say I shan’t be jumping at any chances to go a cruising!!), blue footed boobies, iguanas (man you ugly!)… there was so much we didn’t see which we feel was partly for lack of effort on the part of our guide but that said I really did enjoy it (well apart from the sickness!!) – the boat was lovely, the cook EXCELLENT, the crew really friendly, and the company fantastic – we were comprised of two German couples, one Canadian family (with 2 fantastic kids, 5 and 8), my family, a young French couple and a young Australian couple – we all got on really well, lots of laughs which really made the trip I think!
But the trip wasn’t without it’s challenges, especially the horse-riding – my brother fell off his horse coz his saddle came undone – it was just tied on with a piece of rope = HEALTH & SAFETY!!!!!!, Clare (5) got thrown off her horse when another horse bit hers and it bucked!! But she was SOOOO plucky and within minutes was back on another horse!!! Luckily she didn’t get concussed or anything… then my mum got kicked in the leg by another horse, and luckily it didn’t get broken!! Of course all were generally coping with the seasickness, but one of the German women she was hit soo bad, poor thing that it was very hard for her to enjoy the trip!! Oo ended rather negative but it was a good trip, I’m REALLY glad I went!

Otavalo
Last point for this week… today with Paquita and Armando, and some friends (Carmita, her daughter and her daughter's friend) we took a trip to the Otavaleño market, now famous throughout the world for their weaving!!! bought prezzies for people that my parents can take back with them!! hee hee - parents are very useful! we had a good but tiring day, i'm fair exhausted now!! we also squeezed in a wee visit to a high altitude lake...

Well, time to go again… fraid my ability to email at the mo is ZERO, will do my best to catch up with yous all when I’m back online, though I reckon it’ll take me a little while!!!
Hope you’re well, and for those of you in England, that summer is finally arriving!
Oodles of love
Me xx

Ice-lollies and fiestas...

2005-05-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

News update on the wee baby...
She’s still in the hospital – she’s a real fighter!! But sadly looks like another op might be on the cards – where they operated on her arm/chest, there’s now an infection and she has to stay in hospital until monday when another medic will take a look – as you can tell I don’t really know all the ins and outs, but hopefully she’ll be given a clean bill of health soon!!!

My family
‘Ya mismo vienen’ – really soon they come … this time next week they’ll be here on Ecuadorian soil – lots of things planned to do which is very exciting, starting with a tour of the Galapagos!!! Ooo weee!!! Whilst they’re here not sure if I’ll have time for much emailing but I’ll do my best to keep yous updated on my exploits.

Classes
It always seems like there’s some kind of fiesta here or reason not to have lessons, and according to anne, it’s not just Remar – it happened a lot whilst she was in the coast too! Otra vez (another time) we’ve not had a full week of lessons – though very nearly, just missed one – a clown (payaso) turned up to have a wee ‘party’ with the kids – it was SOOO lovely to see them just being kids and joining in WHOLEHEARTEDLY with the actions, completely unselfconscious! So coz of various breaks in classes, it turns out that cuarto/cinto grados are now way ahead of the other classes by about 5 lessons … and this week we had a go teaching them some grammar! It proved a WHOLE lot harder than we thought, they just about got it in the lesson, but I don’t reckon they’re have remembered for the next! We taught the ‘gerund’, the present continous i.e. I am reading… Grammar is actually a very hard thing to get a hold of in your language let alone in another!! The other classes are still learning the colours which is quite fun, and having a reminder of the animals – for some reason they get really mixed up with ‘worm’ and ‘horse’!!! bizarre!!!
Had great fun yesterday with primero (the mas chiqititos – the smallest ones), singing a song ‘Five sticky ice-lollies’, I’d made wee “puppets” and everything, and it seemed like they really enjoyed it!! Yeay!! Though it’s not easy keeping their attention!

Oo exciting plans coming up
Well, apart from my parents coming, couple of other exciting things planned!!! Firstly a ‘girls day out’, Anne, Anna Maria (trainee psyc who did the Identity workshop with the girls) and I are going to take out the adolescents, a week today, for a ‘girlie day out’… plans aren’t finalized but we’re hoping to take the girls first to a shop where they can each make a necklace and later to have a picnic in the park!! Looking forward to it!! And also in the middle of the time that my parents are here, it’s my birthday!!! Yippee!!! So we’re going to have a ‘fiesta’ – it’s actually going to celebrate 3 things - my 23rd, Dia del Niño (day of the child) and good bye Anne… just starting to think about what we shall do, and I’m really quite excited!!! Though not looking forward to not having anne around, she's been a great chum!!!

‘a ventas’
- selling – on wednesday I went out with maritiza and monica selling… every day some of the women in remar, and some of those adolescents that don’t study, go out on the streets to businesses and shops trying to sell cleaning products – erase any kind of ‘Kleeneze’ connotations from your minds!!! – Remar fabricates window cleaner, disinfectants and the like, as well as brooms and mops, and the women (and the men too, though one doesn’t normally see much of them) got out to sell to raise funds for Remar. So out I went to see what it was truly like, and man, it was hard – not so much physically (though I didn’t carry as much as one could!), and apart from the strong sun, it was hard mentally… you have to keep going from shop to shop asking if they’ll buy – if you don’t ask, they won’t buy – but even if you do, they don’t!! we sold just one broom in the day!! Not good!! But I reckon it really depends on where you go - where we went, everyone said there wasn’t money, which makes it rather difficult to sell!!!!! The reaction of some of the people to my giving the speil was amusing – one guy decided he’d try out his English, then instead of asking me where I was from (which always makes me cross, ‘hello, I’m standing right here in front of you’), he asked Monica, and he assumed I was from the US… others just stared at me half-confused, half-shocked to see this foreigner!! Glad I went though!!

Salsa…hmmm
So sat night I went out with anne and her ecua-friends to supposedly dance salsa – but the guys (only 2) didn’t really know how to dance, they kind of had their own rhythm completely!!! To dance well, you and your partner need to have the same sense of rhythm, and as I’ve forgotten a lot of what I learnt so I really need someone to lead me!! Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to dance salsa with someone that knows at some point!!! Arrived at about 1.30am to my house to find paquita still up, heating water in the kitchen by candle light!! The electric had gone in the afternoon in just the kitchen, Armando rigged up a clever thingy to the light bulb so that the fridge could still work, but then that blew and threw the whole department out!! So sunday morning had to shower in cold water and in darkness!!! But thankfully the electrician came abit later and sorted it all out, so we weren’t without electricity for too long!

I reckon that’s it for this week, as classes have gone well, feeling quite upbeat and not so tired!!! Sincerely hope yous are all well!!! God bless oodles and oodles of love to yous all
Jo xxx

hmm, this week...

2005-05-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Baby shower
Well my week started off with my first ever ‘baby shower’, an American tradition which has been taken up here in the last ten years or so… one of paquita’s niece’s is going to give birth very soon so it’s like a kind of celebration before the baby arrives. So what does a baby shower consist of?? This one, lots of wee games related to baby stuff, chatting, and eating (of lots of sweet things!!). it was good fun though I didn’t like the bit where I had to play a game on my own – during the time it takes a match to burn out, you have to say as many words as possible related to babies – I was like, ‘no, I don’t know the words in spanish’, and the niece’s mum said in English then… but I was like no don’t make me, I can’t remember the English words either!! But they made me do it, and I felt absolutely awful in front of everyone, REALLY on the spot, like EXTREMELY and uncomfortably so, and I only came up with 3 or 4 words!! If I’d have wanted to do it, maybe I would have come up with more, but I’m not so sure!!

La bebe…
The wee one I was telling yous about who had been abandoned… is back in hospital again, she’s had some kind of infection in her hip so they’ve had to operate again, which is serious stuff for a wee baby!! But amazingly she’s doing really well, and Beatrice has definitely fallen in love with her, she’s spending most of her time at the hospital looking after her! That’s a weird thing about hospital’s here, that the relatives do what a nurse would normally do in England – guess it’s coz they have to pay for it all, it’s not free health care! It turns out, as we thought, that the lady that left her was the mum, but she doesn’t want the baby, feels no love or care for her – sad story… I think she’s going to be living remar soon and leaving the baby, so not sure how that will work out…

The worst ever class...so far
- not that I’m a pessimist or anything!! Anne’s been ill this week with a stomach infection so didn’t turn up on tuesday, which meant I had to give the class to cuarto/cinto (4th/5th grade) on my own – their teachers weren’t in the class either as there was a parent-teacher meeting – I was completely alone, and it was completely demoralizing!!! They just didn’t listen or pay attention, completely without respect for me, it was virtually impossible to give the class, though the majority did end up doing the worksheet I gave them – I left utterly dejected, and it took me a wee while to let it go! But praise the Lord for his providence – that I didn’t have to give the second class – tati wanted me to be with the teenagers doing the cards because there was a social services inspection!! I really could NOT have coped with them again in that state! But, in the difficulty and dejection, there was a silver lining – some kids that just saved it for me – firstly pepe, I was teaching them the colours and using the rainbow song, and he was singing along so energetically, and got me to repeat a couple of bits he hadn’t got the hang of!!! Then en recreo (in breaktime) Vanessa came in and said, oo give me the class (she’d been helping clean the house) and continued to enthusiastically fill in the worksheet! So it’s not all bad!!!

Fiesta, fiesta, fiesta…
Only 2 classes were given this week, these ecuadorians are always having some kind of fiesta!!! Thursday we didn’t give classes as the boys had been invited to play a footie match, and the girls had an outing to the parque… then yesterday there was a celebration for ‘Dia de la Madre’ (Mother’s Day = 8th may), so no classes then either!! We’ve not given a full week of classes in I don’t know how long?? What with getting rid of presidents and teacher-training courses!! Oh well!

Back on the cards…
as I wasn’t in classes, I was put in charge of card-making – the organization of which has all gone downhill abit again!! Good to spend time again with clara, just chatting about everything and anything, then yesterday I had two new students, though I wasn’t very attentive in teaching them (oops! mind on other things) but the other gels took on the responsibility which was really encouraging!!

“Surprise, surprise”
‘Surprise’ visit from Chris Stansfield from the Latin Link office… well, I knew he had arrived in Ecuador, but I’d totally forgotten that he’d come to visit and we hadn’t spoken about how we’d meet and he didn’t know where Remar was or anything! Then, out of the blue on thursday afternoon his head popped round the door of where we were making cards!! What a shock, completely not expecting it, completely absorbed in what I was doing! Gave him a quick tour of the premises, and introduced him to the peeps, then we went off to a nearby café for a wee chat! It was good to chat about stuff, and I got him trying some new delicacies!! Mum, dad, tim, just you wait!!! Left feeling very encouraged which I guess was the aim!! (oo by the way, Chris is on a general tour, bit whistle-stop, touching base with a whole load of latin link people in a bunch of different countries!)

‘Super raro’ ‘Really strange’
man, the weirdest thing happened yesterday… walking along Amazonas (a road) checking out different travel agencies for flights to Bolivia…and a lady starts ‘hissing’ at me to get my attention – I don’t think it’s me so continue walking, I mean what would a complete stranger be doing trying to get my attention? Then a guy says, that lady’s calling you… so I stop, with (I’m sure) a complete look of distrust, and say ¿Que? rather defensively… it turns out she wanted my ‘skills’ as a ‘translator’ – she was trying to speak to a lawyer in the US about her son who is in prison there but he (the lawyer) doesn’t speak Spanish nor she English – well, it was an interesting experience!! Spent, I reckon about 45 mins with her, on the phone and then chatting, obviously very worried about her son and what’s happening with him.. she wants to invite me to her house but I feel abit awkward about going to the house of a complete stranger, however nice they may seem???!!!… she wants me to translate a letter from Spanish to English… hmm

frogs, frogs and more frogs (no it's not a plague!)
just been to see a well interesting exhibition of ecuador's frogs!!! they've got something like 10% of the world's species here - ranging from ones less than 2cms long to ones 25cms!!! an amazing host of colours and patterns, and shapes - some really cute, others just down right ugly!!! and did you know (i don't expect you did), that one of ecuador's frogs has led to the discovery of a painkiller many times more potent than morphine, by scraping it's skin with a spatula!! they expect there are many more medicinal qualities as yet undiscovered!! it was definitely well worth the visit!!

ya, that’s it for me waffle today. Another week gone and once again feel utterly exhausted – don’t really understand why, but I’m taking it easy!! Though I’ll be off out dancing salsa tonite with anne!! Hmmm…
oo went to see ‘Super Engordame’ (Supersize me) on wednesday – I’d wanted to see it in England but hadn’t got the chance, has anyone else seen it? ¡Super interestante! Some stuff just left me shocked, a guy whose eaten 19 million big macs – he must be mad!!! For those of you that haven’t seen it, it’s basically about the bad effect McDo’s has on your health but given in an entertaining way! I reckon it’s worth seeing if you get the chance!
Chaos for now...
xxxxxxxxxxxx

6 months down!!

2005-04-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

well after the political turmoil of the past few weeks, this week has seemed quite boring!! I don’t feel there’s much to say at all! oo but news of the country, is that the coast is suffering not only from floods but also from an epidemic of dengue fever!!!

The new president
So, Alfredo Palacio is our new president, he seems to be doing ok at the moment, shuffling round his ‘cabinet’, changing minister’s… though some people still aren’t happy with him!! We’ll just have to wait and see if he turns out to be like the rest… oo interesting thing I heard on the radio, they were talking about how it would be to have a female president – in this country I reckon it would be nigh on impossible that a woman would be voted in, they’re so machismo!

Oh dear, officially a teacher!!
Hmm… turned up on wednesday to find out I had to go to a teacher training course with the head of education for the province of quito. Normally just the headteacher and a teacher have to go, but in our case the head of edu asked for all the teachers from the Remar school to go – so I went too!!! Three days of 4 ½ hours of being talked at has left me completely exhausted!! It’s tiring enough having morning’s of lectures in English but in another language, you have to concerntrate, and hard!! It was interesting though some of it felt abit pointless – felt abit out of my depth with proper teacher’s surrounding me i.e. who’ve actually had training in a university to do what they do!!! Hmmmmm…. Good for my Spanish though!
Coz of this training, just gave 4 lessons this week, and saw an improvement in the behaviour of cuarto and cinto – or at least it felt easier! Sweet moment when anne and I entered the classroom of tercero, 2 girls bounced up and down saying ‘nos toca ingles, nos toca ingles’ – 'it’s our turn for English', so that was encouraging!!

Other news in Remar
I really haven’t a clue where the week’s gone in terms of Remar…I know I’ve done some card preparation, some lessons prep but other than that, it seems a blur!!! But good news, the wee baby that was ‘abandoned’, spent the week in hospital where they operated on the growth, which just turned out to be some kind of fat deposit (phew!) and she came home thursday… the lady who left her, came back, with another child… this time saying it was her sister who had left them (though tati is waiting for her to say that she’s really the mum…)… but anyway she’s now living in Remar too… we’ll wait and see what happens! But the baby is doing well! yeah!

Short and sweet this week…21days till my family arrive on Ecuadorian soil!
Oodles of love Me x

p.s. oo just had my hair cut!!! first time here!! i'm now sporting a lot of curls!!! doubt it'll last long though, i'm sure you all know what i'm like with not being bothered with my hair!! and when i arrive at reamr at 8am in the morning, it's not like i'm going to be wanting to spending ages sorting my hair! chao x

Marching for 'el pais', and up to 4000m!!

2005-04-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well I shall start with the historical events of this week!!! Been involved in a ‘revolution’ (!!!!!)… Lucio is the third Ecuadorian president to be ousted by mass public protests in the past 9 years…

Differences…
Whilst I was watching the country seemingly fall apart on Wednesday morning, with protests getting more violent in the capital, such headlines from England could be found on The Beeb website:
‘Parties fight over council tax’ ‘Rover cars to be made in China’ ‘Stars out for the Guide to the Galaxy’
now, what kind of news would you prefer to hear/ be a part of?? I know which I’d choose, it’s far more interesting (though saddening!) to hear about getting rid of presidents, uncovering corruption than to hear about Rover cars going to China!! There’s never a dull moment here in South America!!

Out to march
So, my role in all this: I arranged with Anne (german lass) to go to the cinema with another german friend of hers and some Ecuadorian friends on tuesday evening to see ‘Entre Copas’ aka ‘Sideways’, or so I thought!… when Andres arrived he commented that he’d like to go on the march they’d just passed and anne jumped in ‘yeah let’s go, we’ll accompany you’ … so that’s where it all started, and we left the car somewhere safer then we walked down to join in the march picking up another chum on the way. This guy’s house was just opposite where the march was passing so we joined in right at the front!! To be honest I felt abit ridiculous, I mean he wasn’t my president!! But I got into it, shouting ‘Lucio fuera’ ‘Lucio fuera’ (Lucio out) and ‘Democracia si, dictadura no’ (I think you can work that one out!!)… We were walking in the middle of the road, I reckon about 200 people mainly students but other ‘normal’ people as well! As cars passed us, there were people waving flags, people tooting their horns (which they’d been doing ever since a week ago friday as a form of protest). We continued walking and our numbers started to dwindle and I was thinking, is this it?? Didn’t seem a very impressive protest! But then we arrived at the end of Parque Elijido, and there was were the big protest was!! A traffic jam of cars, and I reckon several thousand people protesting!!

So what happened?
We made our way closer into the crowd of people chanting and shouting and waving their flags… they were being stopped from going any further by the police… every so often the police threw new bombs of teargas at the protesters.. then we heard that a Chilean news reporter had died from suffocation as a result of the gas…the police started getting more aggressive with their gas throwing so we decided to leave… reckon this about 10, 10.30pm!!

And what next?
So that was tuesday night, and the first death of these protests (total death count 4, with hundreds injured)… it struck me that it seemed such a senseless way to die! But I guess the life of a news reporter takes you to dangerous places! So wednesday morning, it all seemed abit desperate, now that one person had died, we didn’t have a clue what was going to happen next, how it was going to end! That morning after helping abit in the kitchen I had to fold a load of card using the special technique so that they ‘quedan bonita’ (look pretty) and whilst I did this I watched the events unfold on the TV! Saw the protests getting worse near where we were the night before, and in the historic centre as protestors tried to get closer to the presidential palace…throwing rocks, being repelled by gas…mostly students of both university and college age… then we heard that the Chief of Police had renounced his post coz he didn’t want to see Ecuadorians fighting Ecuadorians any more… then at 1.30pm the Congress announced that they had voted that Lucio leave his post, that he was no longer president…

The results, and the future…
So I thought: yeah, at last, an end to the problems but ah ha no… Congress inaugurated the vice President Alfredo Palacio… but protests continued, this time changing to ‘Todos fuera’ (All out) ‘Politicos fuera’ (Politicians fuera)… el pueblo (the village, the people) don’t want anything to do with anything that has anything to do with (?!!?) Lucio! Ni Alfredo, ni el Congreso, ni nada (not alfredo, not the Congress, not anything). So that is where we’re at, we have this new president but the people don’t want him!! Friday the US was calling for new eleccions, which is what the people want – a chance to choose for themselves… Though talking to my Ecuadorian friend the other day he was very pessimistic that anyone good would ever be in office. We shall just have to wait and see what happens next!! There is so much more I could say about the events here but I don’t want to bore you as I’m not the best of writers, but click below to see some photos from the local press of the events, which will give you a better idea of how things have been!

http://www.elcomercio.com/noticias.asp?noid=125508

Effects on Remar..
Hmm… the recent protests haven’t had a good effect on the children… we had rather a serious incident the other day. The children decided to play ‘huelga’ (strike) and were apparently throwing rocks (a terrible example of imitative play!), and one girl of 8 got hit in the head with a rock and blood was pouring down her face, red and thick!!! ¡Que susto! (what a shock!)… her mum cleared it up (Beatrice, a ‘volunteer’, from Columbia that lives in Remar) and it wasn’t a big wound… but it was a hard slap in the face of how events such as these effect children!! The other thing is that the office of remar is situated right in front of the Consejo Provinical (Head office of the province) which was one of the most busy sites for the protesting! Hence rather dangerous!! On wednesday one of the boys in remar, alberto, 13 years, was leaving the office with his responsable (the person responsible for him) and for some ridiculous reason they decided to walk through the march – it was after Lucio had been ‘botado’, got rid of, so they thought it would be calmer. But it wasn’t, and they started to walk faster through the crowd… but then alberto fell… he’d been hit by a teargas bomb in the head which knocked him to the ground when he hit his face! Thankfully his responsable managed to pick him up and shout ‘Ambulancia’, and they took him speedily to the hospital. Alberto ended up with 12 stitches in his head, and 24 on his lip and chin. I saw him on friday and poor thing, he looked rough!!

Other news in Remar
We only had 2 days of lessons coz of the political crisis, both of which were quite tough!! On monday in our second class, the kids were completely apathetic and lazy, and it was impossible to motivate them – I was fighting a losing battle to keep their attention!! Been helping with the cards abit too this week, making the cards ready to send to the shops, which actually took a surprisingly long amount of time!! There have been two sad points which also have positives… first that Jenifer and Juan Diego had to be sent elsewhere for their safety. Their mum had turned up saying she wanted to see them, but really she wanted to take them with her – fair enough you might say but no, she’s an alcoholic and a drug addict that lives on the streets who maltreated her children! (Jenifer is suffering from malnutrition, at 4 years old you’d easily mistake her for 2yrs! As I did when I first knew her!!!) So that was sad as we didn’t get to say goodbye!
The other sad point was that one friday a wee abandoned baby girl arrived – just recently born, no more than 20 days!! With a large growth under one arm, and some horrible burns on her neck. Sad situation but there is also a positive!! If no relatives can be found by the authorities, Tati is going to adopt her! She’s had a rough deal, but God has a beautiful purpose for her life…
Oo sweet moment this week was maribel, for 2 days running when there weren’t classes she asked me if we could do English as she didn’t want to be lazy!! Can you believe it?? A wee child asking for work to do?? So we continued trying to learn the 14 animals we’ve been doing!

Up to 4000m
So bringing yous right up to date, this weekend I went on a trip to see 2 of the 23 things that my guidebook says you shouldn’t miss (hence why this is late!) – the market in the paramo (highland) village of Zumbahua and La Laguna de Quilotoa.. I went with anne and 2 german friends of hers… a 10 hour round trip!! It was great fun though, the scenery spectacular… got some interesting photos, especially of the market… all the indigenas in their clothing… 5 pineapples for 50p!! (can you imagine??)… fried pigs heads! We got up to see the market at 7.30am, then headed up to the Laguna at 9ish in the back of a camioneta (truck thingy) and ended up doing a 4hr 20min hike around the lake, and I almost collapsed!!! Four reasons for this, first, that I didn’t sleep well so was tired anyway, second, that I’m unfit, third, that it was at 4000m and the altitude affects you, and four, I was in trainers which aren’t designed for climbing up and down mountains – they have NO grip!! But I did it!! But I have to say, never again!! If I don’t do anymore serious walking all the time I’m here, I won’t be disappointed!! The other exciting thing was I learnt a bit of quechua (the main language of the indigenas) from the dueña (owner) of our hostal… It was quite bizarre to hear them having difficulty speaking Spanish!!

Oo just thinking what else there is to say, and just a wee point of interest is that the other thing they’ve made a big thing of is the election of the new papa! Lots of news coverage of that too, though of course the main thing taking up newspaper space is the political situ, which I think it will do for some time to come!! Watch this space!
Well I hope you’re all well!!! It’s now less than a month till my parents and my bro come to visit me, VERY exciting! Sending you all loads of love in the places were you are! Me xxx

oo just came to me, i forgot to mention about my night out dancing! we arrived at a place recommended by a friend of anne's, and it was almost dead (reckon coz of the marches!) and the music dire (no bearing to the marches!!)... so after a while of sitting round we decided it was make or break time - and rather than try and dance to this dodgy music that we'd try somewhere else.... so off we trotted to 'No Bar' - which was jam packed! quite a good night - what was good was that the music was a real mixture, bit o salsa, bit o hippy hop stylee (my hip hop stylee dancing got a few weird looks! think Micheal J Fox in back to the future! the people aren't ready for it yet?!), bit o cheese (hmm not so good - YMCA!!! 'i will survive' was fun though!), bit o Lenny Kravitz! girls up dancing on the bar!! (interesting!!) ... one thing that struck me was the fact that the youth culture here doesn't seem that different from at home (coz of the USA influence!) - they know all the bands and groups that we do, and dress in a similar way! you see all these 'Street' ecuadorian young lads! kind of comedy! 'down in the hood!' Got home at 2.30am!!! can you believe it??? fair exhausted the next day as i had to get up at 7.30!!! now, tis all, chao xxx

NEWS FLASH - President's 'gone'

2005-04-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

just a wee update...

things been getting really ugly here - first death last night as the result of the people protesting - a chilean newsreporter died from inhaling too much gas at the march last night (oo too which i went!!!)and a second person today. The situation has been worsening terribly - people have been outside the Congress and in the historic centre trying to get to the President's palace all day - with violent clashes between protester's and police...but then at 1.30pm, El Congreso - the congress - announced that they had voted that Lucio has to go! Praise the Lord! It was all getting abit hairy, and although not all is sorted now, things are looking up at last for ecuador!

check out the beeb for an overall blurb on the situ!http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4466697.stm

P.S. don't worry, i'm safe!!! and i was fine on the march.. more news to follow!
xx

Strike one...

2005-04-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well what a week it’s been!! In a sense a lot has happened and in another it feels like not much at all…

Arty relaxtion…
I’d been thinking how I’d love to join in the taller (workshop) with some of the activities just to have some relaxation, some time to let go in a creative manner but alass the programme is not for me!! But this sunday I got to get creative, it was actually work but I enjoyed it!! Tati asked me to make a load of signs for the bedroom doors, to give them all names – so had fun buying bright coloured card and foamy stuff to make letters that stand out!! Spent like 4 hours on sunday afternoon making them – 4 hours? to make a few bedroom signs? You must be thinking, but ah-ha, it wasn’t just that, I also made all the signs for the ‘new timetable’ of activities! It was very satisfying work!!

Timetable, smimetable…
Well, so much for helping with this new timetable of activities for the kids that i was telling yous about last week… I don’t really know what happened but not one afternoon did I get to join in with what the 'new tias' were doing!! Tati had also spoken with me about getting the girls more organized in helping do chores, and we came up with a timetable for that but the very day I put it up I discovered there was a clash with another timetable, about which I had not been told!! So wednesday on my ‘unscheduled’ day off (coz of ‘el paro’) I set to once again and came up with a new schedule – not least the fact that 2 girls leaving Remar also put a spanner in the works!!! But I think that it’s now sorted, just a matter of getting the girls to actually stick to it, and not to moan too much!!

Because of Lucio, I’m burnt!!!
I’ll explain… I said on sat that the minister of education had called an end to classes to support the strike (paro), so monday the kids had no classes (though tues the minister had changed his mind, and all were back in classes!!! Grrr) – so monday morning, Tati asked us to entertain the kids so they didn’t get up to mischief – doing some kind of art or something… but anne had the great (?) idea if taking them to the park! Well it seemed like a great idea…. So about 10.30, we had all the kids (those that live in the girls home) ready and waiting at the gate to leave, 24 kids in all with just me and anne to look after them!! Argghhhh!!! And we had to walk half an hour to the park, which wasn’t very popular with the kids, especially the little ones (group ranged from 2 ½ to 13) who had to be carried part of the way – all were saying they were really tired but miraculously when we arrived their energy was replenished and off they went running round the playground!! We stayed there about an hour and half, then had the long walk back, which was slightly stressful with the older kids running off ahead, not wanting to wait for the ickle ones!! So, later on in the afternoon, my face started to feel abit tight and at this point I was talking with anne and tatianna and they informed me I was rather red!! Ahhhh, how embarrassing, I HATE being burnt – so I ended up with a red face (back and front), neck, bit of shoulder, and now have a rather ridiculous pattern of brown and white on body! Grrr!!! My mistake was forgetting to put suncream on when it wasn’t sunny!! Never again!!! BUT I hold to the fact it’s Lucio’s fault, coz if it wasn’t for him, the schools wouldn’t have been in paro!!!

People in the streets…
Well the paro turned out not to be a big as hoped for – the spectulated 10 mil indigenas certainly didn’t appear! Where I live all was very quiet, though a lot quieter than usual – there were buses and taxis functioning but not many – though the trole bus wasn’t working at all… The Supreme Court of Justice – what a joke! – (La Corte de Suprema Justicia) a few blocks from my house, was surrounded though… There were demonstrations in various parts of the city, mainly in the centre – but Lucio had put some 700 policemen in the streets surrounding the Government Palace so that no-one could get near him. There were some quite violent clashes (oo with plenty of tear gas!) between the police and demonstrators, with reportedly 79 people injured. But, it seems nothing has changed!!! Hmmmm… although lots of people didn’t join in the paro, they seem to be protesting in the nighttime in their 1000s… not sure how this will end!! Hopefully Lucio will do the right thing, and stop his dictatorial activities and bring back democracy! Douglas (husband of Maria Augusta, Scottish) says it’s never a dull moment in terms of the news in a Latin American country, not like England (this week I read on bbc.co.uk/news, all about how cookie monster is ‘going on a diet’! how is that top news??)

Feeling all studenty again!!
Oo it was great, I went out with anne and 2 ecuadorian friends of her’s to a bar… we were supposedly going to a ‘book reading’ (hmm??!!!) but when we arrived, all the people inside looked so bored out of their minds and all over 50, that we decided to go elsewhere!!! So we went to ‘El Pobre Diablo’ – I had been thinking about how much I wanted to hear some jazz, and as we entered much to my delight, that’s what was playing! Had a really good evening, chatting, chuckling, munching (delicious fruit salad served with muesli, yoghurt and honey – tradition here!), and there was a really lovely atmosphere in the bar – hopefully I might go then one day when there’s live jazz!! That’d be cool… though what I really want, is to hear my bro play!! A lass, I shall have to wait awhile!!

And on that farm he had a dog..
So this week, we didn’t have a full week of classes firstly coz of the paro, and then yesterday we didn’t give primero their class coz some students from a college came to give a party to the kids (oo how I wished I had my camera with me)…but in 3 of the 4 classes we managed to get them starting to sing Old MacDonald!!! Very exciting!! I don’t know much about how long it takes kids to learn, but I reckon 3 weeks to learn 14 animal names is a long time??? (and some don’t know all, for example in the test we had to give the classes, Segundo, averaged 5 out of 14, and that was with selecting the correct word from the board!!) But hey ho, we’ll keep pressing on!! Oo today we celebrated, slightly belated coz the day is 13th abril, ‘el dia del maestro’ (the day of the teacher), and we got included – a wee bit of tasty cake, cola, and nibbles and got given wee cards from the ‘local council’ supervisor for education! So there you go… I’m officially recognized as a teacher!!

So yep, another week has gone, and now it’s just over a month until my parents and my bro come to visit!! Yeah!! Very exciting!! Well I’ve given yous all my news, whether it been exciting or deadly boring, it’s now time for yous to give me yours!!!

oo wrote this this morning but am uploading it now.... check out this link for BBC lowdown on ecuadorian political situ!!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4451007.stm
Lucio has now declared that the quiteños (people of quito) now have no rights - which means for example that the police can effectively enter any home and take what they want... obivously the people are upset!! and one form is protest is an almost continual tooting of car horns in the streets to the rythm of 'Lucio fuera' (Lucio out), and people waving white flags from their cars to signify the desire for a free country! not sure what'll happen...
oo random point... in the internet cafe got some dodgy dance music playing, and i heard a voice say 'this is Gatecrasher at Republic Sheffield with Hallam FM' - how weird is that?!!!!! must be listening over the net?
xx

Enough is enough!!

2005-04-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

There have been several changes this week with the adolescents in Remar which means things are now more strict which they need (although they don’t like it!!)
The new regime…
Wednesday a revolution occurred with the card-making business…no the girls didn’t revolt, it was a good revolution as it badly needed shaking up - praise the Lord!! At the beginning of the week after a ‘telling off’ for badly made cards, it dawned on Tati that more organization was needed and that the girls needed to be supervised all the time which I couldn’t do now that I have classes to take and prepare for! So Gloria was put on cards full time! Oo and what a relief on my part coz after the ‘telling off’ I just felt I couldn’t anymore, enough was enough, I didn’t have the energy to keep it going… but now new life has been breathed in the business, Gloria is doing good!!! Beatrice is also going to be in charge, they’re going to alternate week’s of supervison and I shall just check on quality control and that. Feeling all upbeat about the cards once again coz as you know I’ve been feeling somewhat disillusioned for a little while now… it’s also really good that it’s now a completely ‘home-run’ business – Beatrice even went out to visit the Christian bookstores to drum up more business which is excellent as she’s got the real gift of the gab! But being Columbian I sometimes can’t understand her as they generally speak really fast!

The gels…
Starting to miss the gels now though, as I don’t get a chance to spend time with them either in the cards or in the identity workshop coz of me English classes (oo I want to have my cake and eat it don’t I, never satisfied)!! Though I got abit oversensitive this week as they were making fun of my abundant mistakes when I speak – it’s a good lesson in being humble hanging out with them! And although it’s not very nice, the up-side is that it means they feel comfortable with me! But now that I’m accepted, to have only 6months left doesn’t seem like any time at all to spend with them! It’s really a life work!

Oh dear, country to rack and ruin!
“Pichincha to strike april 12th. Patience has run out. The return of the 3 fugitives was the last straw…” Headlines in a newspaper on monday… hmmm…the political situ is getting worse (see wednesday’s blog for more info) The mayor of Quito and the principal of the rest of the county (called Pichincha) have called a strike until ‘the country returns to democracy’. Every day as I read in the free trole newspaper the situation seems to be getting worse! Friday the department for education called a strike in all educational institutions from friday until thursday – the big protest day will be wednesday (now the 13th on the 12th), and I’m not to go into Remar that day for my safety! Wednesday this week people were demonstrating outside the Supreme Court, and it all got a bit nasty, with injuries and lots of teargas… Thursday students from the catholic university went on a peaceful march, all dressed in black but Janeth (Ecuadorian latin linker studying English at the Cath Uni) said that government bod’s were taking photos of individuals to be put on record and she was saying some might go missing… hmm, bit scary!….Yesterday the papers said that some 10,000 indigenas are going to come to Quito on Tuesday to join in the protest… A lot of people are very angry with Lucio (the president), and if he doesn’t make some changes, I don’t know what’s going to happen! Watch this space…

Volunteers…
Well this week 3 new gels have come to volunteer in remar for between 1 and 2 months– 2 brits and an american…so tati has put me ‘in charge’ of them. With Tati we’ve set up a timetable of afternoon activities that we’re going to do with the kids to keep them out of mischief (oo and they’ve been getting up to lots!!). I’m really quite excited about it coz it’s something I’ve wanted to do but not been able to firstly because of the cards, and secondly because I’ve been alone, and it’s A LOT of work for one person to organize…But the plan is that we’re going to have drama class, art class, storytime, outdoor games and video day! Though, in a slightly pessimistic (or rather just realistic?? forward thinking?) way I’m thinking of what will happen when I’m left ‘solita’ (alone) once again in june! But maybe some other people will come to help?! Hope so!!!

Old macdonald had a farm, eieio…
So English classes on the whole this week have been a lot better, kids more adapted to having us teach them and to learning English.. though still not easy – especially with the ickle kids. It seems crazy trying to teach the littleuns English when they’ve hardly learnt their own language! Though had fun giving some of the classes a game of animal bingo, and hopefully we’ll be able to think up lots of exciting ways to teach them –I don’t want to be a boring teacher, I want the kids to enjoy learning!!! any ideas welcome!!

Volcano erupting…
Just heard yesterday that Volcano Reventador has been ‘erupting’… it’s situated east of quito in the oriente (3 types of land in Ecuador: costa (coast), sierra (highlands), oriente (jungle)) and depending on how the wind is, we might end up getting ash here! Paquita said if your parents hear about the probability they’ll probably be worried but just tell them that quito is situated right under Volcano Pichincha… Alexander von Humboldt once made a comment about how strange Ecuadorians were: that they are happy when listening to sad songs, that they sleep peacefully under active volcanoes, and there were a third comment but I can’t remember it (can anyone help??)

The wedding
oo this morning watched part of the wedding of charles and camila with paquita, i was asleep for most of it (not realising it would be shown, otherwise i would've got up earlier - not that i'm a great monarchist or anything but it's a contact with home!), so just got to see the second half - the blessing in windsor castle... it was nice to see it but it was weird to see so many english faces, and how pale they all looked!!! it was weird also to see people dressed up in scarfs! (though on a cold quito day you can spot people with scarfs and gloves!!!)

Don’t reckon there’s owt else to say… continuing to enjoy my time here, although it’s not easy!! Was thinking of taking a trip today to join anne in otavalo with a friend of hers but decided I just need a day to rest! so hope you’re all resting well!
Oodles of love till next time! Me xxxxxxxx

...hot water, eggs and fun...

2005-04-06T17:23:00.000-07:00

oo wee bit late this week, didn’t have time to write on saturday, wrote it on monday rather than save it up for this sat but then forgot my disk!!… so anyway, how did you all pass easter?? Hope you had fab times!! Our mime in church went well on easter sunday though unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of it, somehow they didn’t record… sniff sniff… was good fun though!!

The death of ‘El Papa’
The death of the catholic pope dude, John Paul 2nd, has been a BIG deal here… when it occurred, every channel was covering it… though got really annoyed by the comment of one woman remembering when the pope came to visit ecuador in the 80s coz she said it was as if Jesus had returned… how can she put the pope on the same level as Jesus? It almost seemed idolatrous the way she said it! To me it’s all abit crazy… oo other thing that all the channels were covering was the return of Abdala Bucaram, known as ‘El Loco’, the madman, a former president who fled the country with millions of sucre (money before dollars). I found it soo strange that all the people of guayaguil were welcoming him with open arms, really happy he'd returned, when he’s robbed them of so much! Armando said that his people are very forgetful and that policitians can easily trick them… it’s a sad situation! And with those that remember, the current president is NOT a popular man for letting this rogue back into the country… hmmm….

Gato en ingles significa ‘ cat’
So last monday, anné and I started giving English classes – first of all to tercero (third grader’s… not sure of the equivalent in England.. year 2?), it went quite well, I felt quite enthused afterwards as I’d learnt so much from anne in the first few minutes.. but the rest of the week wasn’t soo good.. especially our last class with the mas chiquitos (the smallest ones), we both felt completely drained and ‘depressed’ afterwards, it was so discouraging… trying to keep the attention of 23 boisterous 5ish yr olds is hard enough but trying to teach them another language when they don't know their own, well, you can almost forget it!! But we will keep on perservering, and do our best to teach them!

Connoisseur’s corner
Well, the only thing I’ve tried that’s new was… hot chocolate with cheese… what???!! Are you crazy? I hear you say… actually it’s not as weird as it sounds and is quite tasty! It’s not your traditional English cheese (which I miss sooo much - what I would give for a chunk of cheddar!!) that they use, more a sort of mozzarella which doesn’t have a strong flavour. It’s grated so that it starts to melt… it’s abit difficult to eat but it is tasty, though I have to say I do still prefer just to take a plain hot chocolate. OO easter wasn't so bad on the easter egg front after all! My parents sent me a pack of mini eggs and a pack of mars mini eggs, then my wonderful chum emmie also sent me some – some mini fairtrade and mini creme eggs (though got slightly squished in transit - yoke slurging out!) – so i did pretty well in the end!!! Lucky me!

Arrghhh… fed up of machismo!!
I’m not an aggressive person as I’m sure you all know, but these men here are really trying my patience with their comments and ‘psssttt’'s… ahhhh!!!! The other day, i was standing watching a drama, minding my own business and 3 policemen decided it was their right to start talking to me...trying to ‘chat me up', I just ignored them completely and thankfully that was that… Then as I was walking to church, happily in my own little world, some guy started walking alongside me and decided to start talking to me.. I continued humming away to myself and completely ignoring him… but he didn’t take the hint striatght away.. but in the end he did and he went away thinking I don’t speak English!! Hee hee… oo and yesterday (sunday), some guy said ‘Buenos Dias’(Good morning/day), and I ignored him and he said rather more aggressively this time ‘Buenos Dias Señorita’… by this time I’d passed him and he didn’t make anything of it… I just don’t understand how they think it’s their right to make a comment to a complete stranger and expect to receive a friendly response!! And there’s always someone who’ll just give you a ‘sssss ssss ssss’ – arggh ‘estoy harta de esto’ (I’m fed up with this!).
Arghhh, and the urinating in the street… I know I go on but really! Two men this week just as I’m walking by decide to relieve themselves right in front of me – urgghhh!!! but it's not just me, there was an article in the free trole bus newspaper the other about it!

Papallacta, feeling hot, hot, hot.
Friday night I went with some church amigos to papallacta, some thermal springs about 2 hours drive from quito… we arrived rather later than planned, about 8ish, and one would think us crazy for putting on our swimsuits in the cold, cold air, but once in the water, you don’t feel cold anymore, it's delicious… I got so toasted through that when we got out (at 10pmish!!!), I still didn’t really feel the cold! We came back down from the mountain to a village called Puembo, to where Rafa’s family has a ‘holiday home’… really bad night’s sleep as I had to share a bed, and ended up with just a quarter of it so felt like I was going to fall off at any moment… saturday, got up in a chilled fashion, long breakfast… then I played my first ever game of futbol!! Can you believe it?? I was pretty bad, but I got better, though I need A LOT of practise!! I had a really good time with them all (Daniel, Rafa, Daniel, Esteban, Jose, Diana, Jimena, Mari-Ester, Eduardo, Andrea, Wendy)…and my Spanish is improving all the time!!! took some photos whilst in the springs but we look like ghosts coz of the effect of the steam!!

‘me gels’
coz of starting English classes, I’ve had to give up helping the psycho-workshop with the teenage girls which is a real shame… but hey ho…It’s a really great thing for the girls but I know that Anna Maria (the ‘psychologist’) is finding it quite discouraging as they don’t get into it as one would expect with ‘normal’ girls – but when you consider their backgrounds and that expressing oneself creatively has never been encouraged (in fact more frowned upon), their behaviour makes sense! Cards last week was also abit of a bain! I wasn’t with the girls much (and neither was Gloria, supposedly taking over from me) coz of classes and ‘being mum’ accompanying the girls to the dentist many times!!, which meant they were rather a law unto themselves and not much work was done, and some of that that was done, wasn’t good… arghhh….

“Encerrados” – locked in
funny moment of the week... when was it? Oo Thursday – anne and i were leaving at the same time 3.30, i normally leave later but i’d done an 11-hr-day the day before (normal being 8, now 8.30) so had decided to leave early but when we arrived at the gate and we couldn’t get out!! Just as we’d decided to leave the padlock refused to open!! The key wasn’t working, somehow it had got damaged! Various methods were tried for getting it open, sledgehammers, saws but it wasn’t getting anywhere – and the key got completely bent! After waiting 20mins we decided rather than be locked in indefinitely that we’d climb underneath the gate!!! So under we went, crawling on our bellies but trying not to get too dirty as neither of us was going straight home! It was rather amusing, and i regretted it slightly when later my knees and elbows hurt (i never was any good at assault courses!!) but we needed to leave!! Made us chuckle lots though!! It was just so incredible that we were locked in!!!

Hmm… so that was last week… bit discouraging at points but I keep going, 6 months to go! Hope twas interesting to read… keep in touch, oodles of love me xx

oops i'm forgetful!!

2005-04-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

just a quickie, to say i'm still here!!
last night i wrote my latest blog offering but being very forgetful i forgot to bring with me today my disk to upload it!! so to those of you who have faithfully logged on to catch the news, you'll just have to wait a wee bit longer!! all's good, but feeling very tired, and just got 'chastized' for the quality of the cards going downhill - but it's impossible for me now to keep an eye on the girls now that i'm giving classes in the school which take a lot of time!! preparing, giving, marking! oo my vocation isn't primary school teacher!
love to you all xxx

easter - little sign of chocolate eggs

2005-03-26T17:25:00.000-08:00

And what a busy week it’s been, so much has happened! I’ll start where I left off last week…

The zoo…
So I managed to find the right bus and get myself to the appointed place at the appointed time…and as we had thought, Anné was late (she had to take 2 buses), so I just sat down and waited and in the process got bitten by some nasty little bug on my left leg, three times!!! Grrr… half an hour later she arrived and up the cobbled track we trundled to the zoo…it was hard work and I felt v. exhausted by the time we arrived (half hour up hill) but I’m holding to the fact it’s not because I’m unfit (never!!! hmm...) but coz of the heat (ish 25oC) and the altitude!!! So in we entered for the equivalent of a quid, and it was worth it, we were both glad we went. It’s weird coz I can see the bad and good sides to zoos, the good is that people who wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to see and learn about such animals have that chance, but the bad is that the animals aren’t free – both of us were especially saddened by the lions! It’s a small place, took us about an hour and a half to go round but it’s laid out really lovely with lush vegetation all around… Afterwards I took a trip to Anné’s house, so got to see some more of Ecuador …some rural villages and the like! Good to see some more of the REAL Ecuador… quito isn’t really Ecuador, it’s a capital city much like any other!

Connoisseur’s corner
Oo, this week has been a week for sweet things, first of all ‘dulce de guayaba’ (guava sweet) – red in colour, covered in sugar, obviously it's made from guava, bit like a fruit gum in consistency, tasty! Next ‘Mil Hoja’ (1000 sheets), a wee pastry made of thin layers of pastry stuffed with a creamy fondant filling with a choc marble effect on top – tasty but, dare I say it, a bit too sweet for me! And finally the traditional food for easter here, instead of choc eggs (which actually now are starting to enter the country coz of the strong American influence) is ‘fanesca’. It’s a sort of soup which has 12 different ingredients supposedly representing the 12 disciples. I can't remember the 12 at the mo but it includes, broad beans, sweetcorn, chilli beans, onion, fish…. And then several different things are placed on top, including a slice of egg, a piece of maqueño banana, an empanada (similar to a cornish pasty in style of pastry but nothing like it in filling or taste and in this case it’s ALOT smaller!!!) and tiny biscochos (fried biscuity bits). Tasty but alittle strange.

Procession
Yesterday after church I rushed into the historic centre to catch a glimpse of the infamous procession of pentitents that proceed from San Francisco church… the majority of the people are dressed in purple tunics with a KKK style head get up (long pointy hat which covers the face with only slits of eyes), various ‘jesus’s’ carrying their wooden cross (the proper thing, big heavy crosses, they can only go a few steps and then stop), various musical 'bands', epople singing…. I didn’t get to see all the procession (had to get back to the house to go to paquita’s sister’s for the fanesca) including the famous Jesus image from the church which man carry on their shoulders but I was real glad I went…though my photos are gonna be full of heads and umbrellas (sunny day so people were shading themselves)!!!

Prison, therapy and English.
So very exciting, tuesday I got my first experience of being inside a prison, and I know it must be world’s apart from a british prison… for starters the inmates have to pay for everything – those that have money can live quite comfortably, do up their room etc but those without can’t even ‘buy’ their bed (it costs 30 dollars for a bed, about 15 quid but that’s quite a lot of money for most of the people here.). The prison capacity is 120 but currently there are 450 inmates (plus children!), which means 3 or 4 to a room, making for very claustrophobic bedrooms since they’re only box rooms… It was great to join in the Christian meeting they had there, to see the women so full of passion to worship God (the wee room we were in was packed out, about 20 women I reckon), to be a part of it, and to meet the mum's of some of the Remar kids...
Therapy refers to how I’ve got involved in a ‘taller’ (workshop) which a psych student is doing for her thesis (interestingly here, they can call themselves psychologist and practise having just done one degree, but their degree involves a certain amount of hands on stuff unlike our british ones!). 2 hours every day we’re doing creative things to help the girls with the issue of identity, it’s been quite hard going getting the girls to open up but I know a breakthrough will come (it’s happening for a month) and I’m sure they will benefit from it in the end… so it’s really exciting to be involved in it!!! As for English, monday, Anné and I start giving English lessons and I become a teacher!!! Aaahhhh!! Haven’t a clue how it’s going to turn out but we’re going to start by trying to teach them ‘Old MacDonald’!!! so teaching the vowels and animals!

Cards…
Excellent news for me this week was that Tati wants me to start handing over responsibility for the cards to Gloria (a lady, sort of like a 'responable') so that I can get involved in other things, though this wasn’t greeted with enthusiasm by some of the girls!!! Not sure how easy it’s gonna be, because within Remar things are changing constantly, and for all I know they might decide to send Gloria to another city (Remar has homes in 4 cities in Ecuador) or get her doing something else… so we’ll see… finger's crossed :)

Mental weather…
Tuesday I think it was, was an interesting day.., started off bright sunny and warm in the morning, soon after lunch it had clouded over then mid afternoon it started hailing!!!! Unfortunately I got stuck out in it a wee bit but I didn’t get too badly wet… it stopped by the time I left but whilst in the internet café it started again and this time worse – thunder, lightning, the strongest hail i've seen!!! Horrible!!! But luckily it turned into rain and got lighter, so that when I left I didn’t get too wet (bad Quiteña that day, didn’t have my brolly with me) but there were still piles of hail on the pavement and roadside! The storm had been so bad that when I caught the trolley it had to take a diversion coz the road was so badly flooded it couldn’t pass. Thought i'd tell you this so you'll realise that quito isn't really the land of the eternal spring as they told me!! it's a whole lot colder and a lot more temporamental!

wells, I hope you’re all having a good easter… mine is rather hectic we’ve 7 meetings at church in 3 ½ days, so I’m a singin, singin, singin! Tomorrow I’m in a mime with some of the youth which hopefully we’ll all remember well – we’re meeting at 8am(!!!) tomorrow to have a final practice. Hope this makes sense, I’m aware this week’s blog might have less of a thread than usual, I blame it on over tiredness… best be off my lovelies need to get to church for the next meeting! Oodles of love to you all xxx

My first x-ray and my first bagel...

2005-03-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

Discovered a bagel café yesterday - yeah!!! My first bagel in 5 months!!! Very tasty, tasted just like at home, I asked for peanut butter and jam! Mm, mm, mmmmm!!! I think I shall be visiting there again!

Breaking things, or not quite…
This is in reference to the title of this week’s blog! It all begins as I was entering ‘escuela dominical’ (a.k.a. sunday school), I was chatting away to Daniel not watching where my feet were treading (didn’t think I’d need to! It’d been fine every other time I’d entered the room) and before I knew it, CRASH!!! I plummeted to the floor, bashing my right hip and right elbow on the floor and wall! Ouch! There had been a carpet which moved as I stepped on it (slippery floorboards!), and not realizing what was happening I didn’t have time to save myself!
So danny picked up me off the floor and we walked (or rather slightly hobbling on my part) into the room, as tears started to well!!! So class started and I did my best to calm down and participate but I just couldn’t stop the tears from falling and the pain of my right elbow was huge and increasing!!! The others noticed and danny ‘rushed’ me upstairs (our class is in the sort of basement level) to see if ‘there was a doctor in the house’… there was and he came out to check me over! He had a good old poke and prod and decided nothing was broken but perhaps there was a crack and it would be best to get an x-ray… Maria Augusta came along at this moment and got very worried over me, saying she’d take me to the hospital, we just needed to wait for wendy (other sunday school teacher) arrive so that she could go with me… so I sat and waited, trying desperately hard to stop crying… I was really touched by how many caring faces there were around! (and afterwards how danny, aurea and rafa rang to see how I was) and Paulina (whose in the worship group with her hubby) when she noticed me came over and gave me a lovely mummy type hug!

Anyway to cut a long story short, Douglas (maria’s husband) took me to a hospital to the ER…had to wait quite a bit to be seen, then wait for x-ray (didn’t like the way the lady moved my arm, it hurt, but I understand she had to have it in a certain position!!), wait for the results and wait to pay (35 squids!!!).. so, the results - as you can probably tell from the fact that I’m able to write - it’s not broken! In fact there’s not a thing to show for my fall on me bones! Praise God! I have a contusion – basically a bruise, but man it hurt!! So he gave me some antiflammatories, told me put ice on it, to rest it and not to exert it…

Told Maria Augusta how I was and she forbid that I go to remar on monday coz it would be impossible to rest my arm there! So I had a day’s holiday, much needed! Spent the morning mostly reading, then went to the science museum cost me 50p and it was dead shoddy! Well my guide book did warn me but I decided to go anyway! Some really interesting stuff (although presented appallingly! You have to see it to understand how badly), got grossed out and freaked out by the size of some of the insects that live in this country – urggghhhh!!! Don’t wanna come across them in the day let alone on a dark night! Urgghhh!! But luckily (?) I’m living in quito and you hardly ever see bugs (all the pollution??). Stuffed croc and snakes gave me a bit of a fright too, their poses were just too life like!! Glad I went though…

I’m pretty much better now, doesn’t hurt but aches, though it’s not exactly an ache, it’s a weird sort of feeling! it's definitely letting me know its there!

Moody girls…
Had an interesting afternoon thursday making cards, Gladys (16), a new teenager to Remar (though she has been in Remar before), got angry with me when I ‘made’ her work. She’d not done anywork for about half an hour, so I asked her to stop doodling and continue working, and waited abit, giving her abit of leeway. I asked again, nothing, so I took away the book she had been tracing some pictures from… and man she didn’t like that!! Wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the afternoon, and if I responded to something she said, like ‘I agree’, she’d reply ‘i’m not speaking to you’… and later when I congratulated her on the cards she’d made, how pretty they were, she said ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion’! Which made it a slightly difficult afternoon! Though friday she seemed to have let go of her grudge! Amen! Cards coming along well, been working on them everyday but thankfully I haven't been with them all the time, had to go out buying materials, do this and that, which gave me some much needed variety!

A is for apple…
This week coming, anné and I are going to start giving English lessons!!! We were thinking monday but we’ve not had a chance to get together and plan coz of card-making and whatever else--- ooo today had to be plumber again on the sink pipes, water was all over the kitchen floor and no-one seemed to be doing anything about it so I took it upon myself to sort it out! Mopping up I realized that water was coming from under the sink, so took everything out and it was ‘full’ of water! And the only way it can get full of water is if it’s leaking from the sink pipes so I took it apart and took out a lemon (they have wee tiny ones here about the size of small apricot) a pip of some kind, rice and bits of veg all wedged in there –lovely!!

My first time in a cell…
Well, its not happened yet, but I’m referring prison - not that i'm being sent there (!) but gonna go a visiting a prison… every tues tati goes to visit the womens’ prison where some of the girls mum’s are, and this tuesday, if all goes to plan, anné and I will be going with her! Very exciting!

Swings update…
Well we’re nearly there, it’s just the weather keeps getting in the way of getting the paint work done! Grrr, but I hope that when I go to Remar on mon that all will be ready!! At last!! and then i can send some photos!!

Psychological study..
A niece of one of paquita’s good friends is about to start her thesis study (for psych) with some of the adolescent girls in Remar – it’s all about idenitity and she’s going to use different forms of ‘therapies’ to aid the girls to express themselves and grow.. and I’m gonna help!! Very exciting! It involves all sorts of creative stuff, dancing, collages, writing… lots of things. Looking forward to it, we start monday –from 8am –10am every weekday for the next month (I’m gonna try and get there as early as I can, normally arrive at 9, so that I can get properly involved).

Connoisseur’s corner
This week, a new fruit ‘ uvillas’, orange and quite sharp… they grow in wee pod like things that are a light brown and dry, I remember my mum having some as a decoration once (though haven’t a clue what we call them in England) but here they eat them! New pastry type thing I’ve tried too this week, it’s called ‘buñelo’ (or it could’ve been ‘pristiño’, paquita wasn’t quite sure as they’re very similar), it’s a sort of fried sweet batter thingy in a random form… that doesn’t make any sense does it? Hmm, can’t explain it any other way!

What else?
Oo off to the zoo today with anné, it’s about a 45m bus journey out side of quito, I hope it’s good! Busy week with preparation for easter, the ‘youth’ are doing a mime and we were practicing till 10pm on wednesday, and last night we had a ‘super ensayo’ (super rehearsal) of the worship band, of all the songs we’re gonna sing over easter, at the ridiculous number of meetings we have! It lasted 3 hours!!! so yeah that's all, keep in touch my lovelies!! xxxx

Raindrops keep falling on my head, and a lot more besides

2005-03-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

So yes, we’ve had another week of very English like weather, rain, rain rain, and more rain, which means the capped crusaders have been out in force again on the streets. Friday was the first non rainy (and actually pretty warm) day in over a week!

Famous Faces
Thought I’d update you all on what other look-a-likey’s I’ve seen! Over the past couple of weeks I’ve seen a latino Chesney Hawkes (he’s not the one and only), Dr Simon from Holby City (though a lot chubbier, and I think he was actually Colombian), Eddy Izzard (Mexican, I think), and my trole driver the other day was Sly Stallone! So there you go!

Powercut!!! Ooo weeee + Dia de la Mujer
Experienced by first power cut on tuesday. Very exciting!!! Just sat down on my bed to do some writing, there was a wee (actually not so wee, but not long) flicker of the lights and all was fine, then, just a few moments later…we were plunged into complete darkness! I reached over to my bedside table and got out my wee ‘lampara de bolsillo’ (light of pocket – i.e. torch) and continued with what I was doing… As I was doing this, I could hear Paquita fumbling around getting some candles lit… I looked out the window and our whole area was pitch black… though alittle in the distance I could see street lights blazing in one direction and in the other buildings with lighted windows. Don’t know what happened, but there were quite a lot of houses without light…The lights went out at 6.55pm, and it felt like an age before they came back on 20 minutes later!
The day of the blackout, was also the ‘Day of the Woman’, which I don’t think we really celebrate in England since the first I heard of it was at uni (where they celebrate everything and anything!) It was very exciting coz I didn’t have to pay my trole fares for the day – now, that would never happen in England!!! Also there were lots of women walking round with roses, but no-one gave me one… sniff sniff… though Jessica (one the girls in Remar, 12) suggested I buy one and say someone bought it me!!

Randomness…
Was logging onto the beeb yesterday to catch up on some news, albeit very briefly, typing in bbc.co.uk, and as the computer is want to do, it brings up the pages related that other people have visited, and what should come up by bbc.co.uk/neighboursupdate!!! Some British person in Ecuador is missing neighbours soo much they have to go to the beeb to find out what’s going on!! The thought had never crossed my mind, but as the address was there, I thought I might as well take a wee look and discovered that izzy was marrying carl, or was she? Dun dun der! Who’d a thought it? Crazy English, we love our soaps! (well, not all of us!)
Oo saw a guy with a thundercats t-shirt – remember that?

The cardmania continues
Well monday we finished making all the cards, just! Tuesday I was sorting and checking, then I thought ‘at last, a wee rest from cards, I can play with the kiddies’… but a-ha, oh no, they want to keep me out of mischief so they’ve given us another order which is turning out to be 1000 cards!!! And we’re going to develop some bookmarks too, 500!! It’s all for the pastor to take to Spain in June… there’s a big Remar conference of all who are Remarites from the 60 odd countries in which they work (it’s big!!!) and our pastor wants to take all these to sell to the peeps there! Waaaaaa, waaaaa, waaaaa, I wanted a break!!! I want to play with the kiddies, not sit at a table all day!! But hey ho, I have to do as they wish… so thursday we started again making cards – it was sooo funny coz none of us had the heart to do it, we were all really tired, me hyperactively soo, and couldn’t be bothered… although we managed to make a few cards, we laughed most of the day away! (we didn’t do any in the morning as we spent the time adding some swish stickers to every card for the US order, putting the card and envelope in a wee plastic pocket – very exciting! They looked so professional!). Friday we were alittle more dedicated, but not much!! Though I must say it is good to spend time with the adolescents that there are, and with some of the other women.

Fairies
On my one day off from card-making, though not completely (I spent 2 hours trying to squeeze an answer out of tati as to what designs they wanted from spain…she kept getting called off, here there and everywhere!! Aaahhhh) I got to spend abit of the afternoon with the girls, and they were outside with a giant book of fairytales (I mean giant, bigger than most of them!!), they asked me to read whilst they acted out the story. It was great fun, and it was so nice to see them acting that I thought about asking tati if we could organize a drama workshop with the girls… I didn’t at that moment, and then my hopes were dashed when tati told me that the pastor wanted these cards made and wanted girls doing it ‘all the time!’ Ahhhh!! I don’t want to be chained to a desk! Need to pluck up the courage to say so to Tati, that I’d like to help in other ways too!

Cangrejo
All the food that Remar gets is donated (e.g. from fruit veg markets, from the police, or whoever else) and on monday someone had given them crab!!! So we all ate crab soup – don’t worry it was fine for my stomach to eat, they were still alive when they arrived!!! Totally unexpected that we’d have crab in Remar!! Although they’re not expensive here, like in England, and I could eat probably quite a lot of them, I can’t really be bothered with them – it’s too much work for meat that isn’t really that tasty! Pah! Pah I say to crab! Pah!

¿Que mas? What else?
Well I think that’s about it for my mad ramblings this week! Doing this rather later this week, coz I’ve had a Latin Link offical meeting all day with a lawyer… once a year all the missionaries have to get together and tell everyone what they’re up to (and write a wee report – Dave and I had a wee competition, who could fit the most song titles into their report, loser buys the winner an icecream! neither of us won or rather it was a draw, 13 each!!!). It’s a legal thing to show that the missionaries are doing stuff, and are doing what they said they’d do on their visas, giving proof that the mission is a bonifide organization – coz if it’s not they (the government) won’t let anyone else in! ever! No more striders (that’s people like me), no more Step-ers (teams that come out to do a project like build a school or summat for 6 weeks or so) – serious stuff! It’s different in other latin American countries though…

Oo I’d forgotten
And no-one pointed it out, that I never explained about the marches we were having against the government!! I mentioned it in a blog a couple of weeks back! Basically the president is being rather naughty… there was this president a while back who was abit mad and ended up leaving the country with millions and millions of sucre in some holdall bags… the supreme court had ruled that this guy can’t come back into the country, and that if he did he has to go to prison… but our dear lucio has changed all the judges that said this, to new judges that now say what he wants them to say – that this ex-president can come back in a free man! (now why is Lucio letting this man back in? some say it’s bribery! Ai, ai, ai, corruption!) Needless to say the people are outraged, this guy stole loads of money from the people and deserves to pay for what he did! So 1000s upon 1000s of people took to the streets to protest.. but nothing’s changed… so again this week there have been more strikes – especially from teachers, students causing havoc on the streets (though thankfully the uni students by us have been relatively calm this time, no need for tear gas)… don’t know how it’s going to resolve!!!
Oo also introduced paquita and Armando to lemon meringue pie (my first ever, and rather delicious if I do say so myself!) and to roasted parsnips…mm, mm!!

the forgotten
it's easy to forget when one is involved in a work such a Remar in which lives have hope, have a chance, that outside the walls there are 'un monton' ( a lot) of people for whom life is a continual struggle, full of strife... i went to the historic centre to supposedly see some of the remar youth do some street drama, but they didn't turn up before it was time for me to leave... any way as i was wandering around you would not believe the number of prostitutes i saw hanging round the street corners! somehow you can just tell.... stark remember of what life is for some... then last night as we were driving to the house of some friends of paquita and armandos, saw 3 youths, not much more than 14 i reckon, sat on the roadside in 3 states of drunkness, one in a complete stupor, totally out of it, another pretty far gone who tried to lift his friend up but was wobbling around too much himself to help, and the other drunk but not so much... this was a 6.30 in the evening, 3 youths... can you imagine what their lives must be like in order for them to be soo drunk at that time, and that age? there is a lot of need here!

Well mis ‘amados’ (loved ones), I shall love you and leave yous for another week! Just been to the cinema with dave and bev, we saw national treasure - i didn't really want to it but i actually enjoyed it! anyone seen it?? so,. many saludos (greetings) from quito to you all! Love me xxxxxxxxxx

Asbestos calls a halt...

2005-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

Well here begins a lengthy story, actually I’ll keep it short so as not to bore you…. my wonderful cluster, home, in st thoms gave me 100squids after I asked them if they’d like to contribute to sorting out the swings at Remar, coz there’s only one and there are like 60 kids or something at the school!! It was supposed to be a christmas gift, but things haven’t panned out like I’d thought so it’s only been THIS week that work has started on renovating the swings!

Los Ingleses (the English, well actually and an American)
A group of English gap yearers had arrived in Ecuador with Venture Co (no, i’ve not heard of them either) to spend a month renovating the guarderia. As part of their work they were going to do the manual labour on the swings and playground too, to restore them! So they came on monday and everything started off well, working hard sanding down the wood so we could varnish and paint it all later on in the week – which you’ll be pleased to hear I didn’t leave them to do all by themselves, I chipped in for half an hour or so sanding away during a break from card-making…

A discovery…
But then wednesday came and all were very tense and pallid (is that the right word?). They’d discovered the roof that had been taken off (and was just lying by the side of the building) was made of asbestos….and they had looked up on the net all about it, so were suitably worried about continuing work on the nursery… eventually the head guy in England was rung and his decision was get the team out of there, they’re not to continue! Which means they’ve gone… not sure if they can return now that it’s all been “cleared away”? It’s been very disappointing all round and has also provided an example of cultural differences in mentality, i.e. of ‘health and safety’- here it doesn’t seem to exist, no-one knew the dangers of asbestos, and when they knew, they didn’t seem to fussed…Also I think they don’t seem to worry so much about the future here, the possibility of developing lung cancer in 15 years (or whatever, I don’t actually know much about the topic) time doesn’t resonate in their thoughts… they seem to live a lot more for the now.. this has it’s good and bad sides, just as has our preoccupation (I think it’s fair to say) of building for the future (so much so that we forget to enjoy and make the most of the present!). We can definitely learn from each other!

What to do?
So they left, and I thought ‘oh no, what we gonna do with the swings now???’ but tati was on the case and she’s got a few guys in the rehab programme continuing the work… we’ve bought some paint and ordered some new metal hanging bits and bobs (sorry, don’t have a clue of technical names!!!), so the work is continuing and hopefully will be finished next week! Yeay!! Finally!!! But as for the nursery, don’t know what’s gonna happen with that… it’s all abit of a mess…

The week’s moments of note
One day as I was catching the trole home I was entertained by an ‘Annie’, a wee girl of about 9 or 10 I reckon, with a voice way larger than her body – singing at the top of her lungs some random Spanish love songs to earn a few centavos– it’s takes guts to do that on a packed trole! Such confidence!
Was rather taken back by a man in Juan Marcet (a big stationery type store) the other day. I was standing behind him patiently waiting to be served at the big sheets of paper and card desk (make sense??), he turned round, saw me there and seeing the other papers I had in my hand asked me , what I felt was rather rudely ‘What’s that for?’ – I mean honestly, who asks a complete stranger why they’re buying something - a wee bit personal I felt… so I rather cagely replied ‘for making cards’… he then proceeded to try his English out on me… arggghhh!!!!!! I felt so awkward and found him rather rude but tried to be gracious! Hmmm.. then yesterday on the trole, this type of thing happened again… somebody got up to leave their seat, so I looked round to see if there was anybody more deserving of it than myself – there was an old man, so I offered it him but he declined, I sat down. So then he comes over and starts talking to me, I was absolutely exhausted after a hectic week so had absolutely no energy or desire to talk – but in an effort not to be rude and ruin relations between cultures, I did my best to be obliging in replying to questions when I REALLY didn’t want to. Why is that coz you’re a foreigner, everyone (slight exaggeration) feels it’s their right to force themselves upon you, making you talk, when you’re COMPLETE strangers!! Grrr!!!

Card mania – cards coming out of my ears…
ok, well not literally!! I have to be honest this week has been tough at points coz of the card-making, it’s meant I’ve had to stay late most days and with me having a cold, ahs left me quite exhausted!
You’re probably asking how an earth can you get so tired making cards? Well, when you’re in charge of organizing everyone and everything (about 8 people, who tend to change each day, such that there’s normally one new person to be taught), and don’t have a seat, and are trying to do a million and jobs at once, whilst people are demanding to know how many cards have been made – it can get abit much!!! But praise God, it calmed down towards the end of the week, and although I’ve not got all done that I needed to, it was fine. Because I was having to think of so many things at once, it meant I didn’t really get to join in the conversations much. But I have enjoyed my week, and was especially encouraged to hear that this week for one of the women (I had a mixture of adolescents and mums to work with), the cards had been a real therapy for her as she’s trying to get over a drugs habit! Part of it is that we have been listening to worship music all the time (they’re not really allowed to listen to the music of the world – bit weird but I have to respect their beliefs!). I didn’t have time to do an exact sum of how many cards we’ve made for this order of 500, but I reckon it’s 400 and something, including those we made the week before, so we’re doing well, and I hope we’ll finish on monday, then have a break! Yeay!

Songs..
This week heard several ‘british’ worship songs sung in Spanish which has been cool… including ‘Better is one day in your courts’ ‘When the music fades’ and ‘How great thou art’.. HCJB radio station was on in the kitchen today I heard some Tim Hughes, Redders, and Delirious, so felt quite at home!!

Friends…
Continuing to get along well with Ane, she’s been helping abit with the card-making business but I think she’s still finding it abit weird adjusting!! Well, it has only been 2 weeks! Do you remember Clara?? We were having a laugh in the kitchen before this big card order but now she’s not around in the girls home as she’s been sent to live in the Mitad el Mundo (the boys home, about 40mins from where I am ) and doesn’t come in anymore, so we don’t get to see each other now! Sniff sniff! But hopefully we’ll be able to continue our friendship and I’m gonna try to make it out to visit!
Other friends wise, had great fun with the ‘youth’ of my church last night… we had our usual meeting then went out a get something to eat… we went to a sort Turkish Arabian bar/restaurant… and I had a fab time, managing to converse quite easily (though not understand all that was said) and i really feel (finally) that I can make good friends with this bunch. They’re always having a laugh and making jokes, and they even laughed at a few things I said (not jokes but comments), so that must mean I’m really improving my Spanish! Although I make mistakes ALL the time, I feel confident and comfortable to speak with them… we also had a funny time trying one of those Arabian pipe thingy’s – with flavour of fruits but I didn’t like it much as it tasted of anis (urgghhh!!!) and having a cold it irritated my throat – but it was interesting to try! I also discovered, that they are allowed to go out ‘dancing’ –I had been told before I came that generally Latin American churches are EXTREMELY conservative and don’t allow people to go out dancing…but last night I discovered this church isn’t like that, yeay!!! So hopefully soon we’re all gonna go out dancing salsa or something – what I’d really like though is a bit of hip-hop to do some crazy body flinging too (emmie!!!) but we’ll see!

Connoisseur’s almost on holiday!
Not many new things tried this week… a fruit called Lima, it’s like a lemon but not… it’s not sharp like a lemon, more dulce (sweet), though you have to eat only the inside of each segment coz that skin is bitter. Eaten melloco’s, a sort of beany, potatoey thing which to me tasted abit like a corn on the cob. Also Jugo (juice) de Cerezos (I think that’s right?? Well yous wont’ know!! J) wasn’t that nice, tasted like unripe plums! Hmmm….

Oo !que emocion¡(how exciting!)
Great news is that my parents and bro are coming to visit me, they arrive on the 20th may for 3 weeks, which means they’ll be with me for my birthday (1st june)! Very much looking forward to them coming and Armando y Paquita are excited too! Yeay!!

That’s all my ramblings for this week, i'm looking forward to the next week, to finishing this card order and actually having some time to spend with the kids, I feel I’ve not seen them in AGES!!! Hope your week’s have been good, that you’re all well and enjoying life! Don’t forget to keep in touch!!! Oodles and oodles of love jo xxxx

Swallows and Amazons...and the would-be robber

2005-02-26T19:03:00.000-08:00

It’s true, swallows and the Amazon really do go together (book by english author Arthur Ransome). So last weekend I took my first trip to the Oriente, to jungle country… to a place called Mangayacu, a retreat for Christian groups. I accompanied the Aitken family and their English pastor Phillip (who was visiting them) as they went to teach some Ecuadorian missionaries. The journey took about 4 hrs from their house which is in the one of the valleys surrounding Quito, and was a very beautiful journey – must do it again coz there are lots of things to stop off and see along the way which we didn’t have time to see any of. Specially want to go in a basket over a HUGE gorge!! Oooo. I thought it was gonna be hot, so packed my shorts, but it wasn’t… humid yes but hot no! in fact quite cold at points! It rained pretty much all the time and on the last morning woke up to find a beetle (escarabajo) sharing my bed – though I’d killed it in my sleep!! All the better I say! I had a good time and was glad I went, managed to do quite well with my Spanish chatting to people and translating in conversations (roughly!!) for Phillip.

“I wanna be a robber”
I was walking to church for the run-through of the songs for the ‘culto’ (service) a week ago last sunday, my normal route by the centro commercials on the very edge of a park, just by the main road. To my right I noticed 2 wee small children sleeping in the sun (oo wasn’t raining that day!) and assuming they must be street children, thought to myself ‘i’d love to be doing some work reaching out to these kids but on my own not sensible!). Continued walking and noticed 3 boys clock onto me as I neared the bench where I was sitting, as I got nearer one got up and came in my direction….

He walked straight across my path, coming right up close to block me, crossing over from my left to my right as I stopped (he was in the way!) I didn’t quite catch what he said at first just but worked out he said ‘ te vaya a matar’, which means ‘I’m going to kill you’ (but said with a subjuntive tense, leaving it an uncertainty…) ‘Give me your money’ He starting sticking his fingers into my right pocket searching for money (actually all there was was tissues! Nice!), I took hold of his fingers and took them out saying ‘I don’t have any’… he started putting his fingers in my back pocket, I took them out saying ‘I don’t have any only my bus fare’… he seemed ‘satisfied’ at this response and opened my path a little, so I carried on walking and he shouted out ‘ bus or car’ and I didn’t reply…

As I started to walk away, my legs started to feel abit jelly-like and I started to think over the situ, talking to God about it. I actually didn’t feel afraid consciously (though obviously my body felt shocked coz of it’s reaction of jelly legs!)– I reckon if I it was in England I would’ve felt afraid coz I would understand straight away what was being said but because Spanish isn’t my first language, there’s a wee delay in understanding which takes some of the pressure out of the situation! Also he was actually a very threatening character, he didn’t even come up to my chin, he had no weapon with which ‘to kill me’, and as I looked into his eyes and upon his face, the overwhelming thing I felt from him was a sense of despair – eyes without a hope in the world. This has really left an impression on me – he was so hopeless that he didn’t even make a very good mugger – he didn’t even try to take my bag (which incidentally had my digi camera in – God providence there!), he made a very lack-lustre, half-hearted attempt at a muggery – it was also in broad daylight with quite a few other people around! Right by the main road… So as I caught the Ecovia to church, I continued to muse on the situation, I was thinking how I’d love to be able to go back and find out his situation, to start some street work and encourage them to leave the streets (and wondered how Remar would fit in!), but mostly tell them about Jesus, coz he’s the only one that can give hope and this boy didn’t have even the tiniest bit – but as a girl this would be silly, and as a foreign girl, even more silly, to do on my own!!! I need some ecua-buddies to do it with me!! Hmmmm…

No shame
Now for a bit of random culture news. Well it seems the men here have no shame… whenever they feel they need the to relieve themselves, WHEREVER they are, they’ll just go! There are a couple of places I walk past often which I have rather uncouthly called “Public Piss Points” … whenever you walk past them, your nostrils are filled with a beautiful (?!) stench of urine! Don’t you wish you were here?! This is such a big problem here (oo and unlike in England, it’s not just the drunks that pee against a wall but business men, little boys, students too!) that in the centre they’ve started fining people that are caught urinating publicly and either they pay a fine or they put on a ghostbuster like backpack and clean the offending area!!! And this was a story running in the Trole bus newspaper!!! Would you believe it?!!

Blown away
Been blown away recently by ways that people have been blessing Remar… The week before last some university students (UCT – don’t know what it stands for but its about 15 mins walk from Remar) organized a fiesta for the children (there were 2 days school holiday because people were marching against the government – explain more later). They did it so well, picking them up in a ‘luxury’ coach, dressed up and giving them all name badges… we arrived at the uni to be greeted by a load more students dressed up in fancy dress costumes of different genres (dolls, clowns, a flower, a wolf…), and they rushed all the kids up to the very top floor where they’d decorated with various pictures/artistic creations on the walls, balloons and streamers on the ceiling (which of course the children soon began to ask for!!!). There were games, a dramatized version of Little Red Riding Hood, food (biscuits, sweets, crisps, hot dogs + chips, cake, colas), and ollas encantadas (like the piñatas of Mexico but different, Ecuadorian style – will get photos put up at a later date!). Though I spent most of my time comforting and looking after Maribel who came down with a fever (she already had a wee cough) and so was balling her eyes out! Pobrecita! (poor thing). Many more things, but sure you don't wanna hear them all now!

Connoisseur’s corner and capped crusaders.
As you know my blog wouldn’t be complete without some reference to food. The other day I treated myself to a jar of Cadburys Hot Choc – the great british export! (coz as you know our choc IS one of the best in the world, there’s nothing quite like it – it must be that glass and a half of milk!) – cost me nearly $5 which is about 2.60 squids, is that expensive?? Can’t remember how much Cadbury’s costs in UK coz I now buy Fairtrade hot choc (but that doesn’t exist here) but actually can’t remember how much that costs either!!! So every now and then I am enjoying a taste of home with a cup a hot choc! Mmmmm….. was especially nice with the awful weather we had for nearly two weeks – very English like rain, from morning till night and oftern night through, though heavier than our rain. and one day we had English-like fog!!! A first here for me! I felt quite a home, like a rainy winters/spring day in Sheffield. The other food news is ‘Melcochas’, on my way to the Oriente we stopped in Baños, where there are these guys making it in doorways, pulling and stretching it over hooks. It’s pretty much pure sugar, bit toffeish, taste of dark demerara sugar – it’s made from the raw sugar cane…. I have a sweet tooth (here you’re called a ‘goloso or golosa’ – male/female) but it’s too much for me! It’s worth a try though! Ooo I almost forgot the capped crusaders refers to the police peeps, and traffic police who because of the rain were wearing these HUGE poncho-like watermacs, which reached down to their knees!! Comedy!! But practical for ease of movement and good circulation of air!

A new foreigner…. But not a gringo…
This week arrived, Ane, a german lass. She’s been in Ecuador since july last year with a german gap year organsation working in the coast. She arrived a week ago friday in Quito, to spend 3 months helping with some group, and she was directed to Remar. So now I have a new chum!!! I think we’re gonna be good friends, we’re meeting up on Sunday to have a walk around the historic center. I think the move from the coast has been pretty tough on her, as she’s now solita (whereas in the coast there was a whole bunch of them), and also getting used to life in Remar, the situations of the kids, their behaviour and all, she’s finding hard and shocking… So I’ve been able to support her and encourage her in that, that I went through a similar thing when I arrived of feeling abit useless and all. So that’s cool, looking forward to working together but hope I don’t end up speaking Spanish with a german accent – you know what I’m like at picking up accents!!

Full steam ahead…
.. with the card-making business. We received an order for 500 cards from a guy linked to Remar who lives in the USA. So we started to make a dent in that this week – just 68 card first, so that Maria Augusta could check the quality – but it’ll be all cylinders firing as of Monday!!! Looking forward to spending more time with the adolescents and mums who are gonna be making them, hopefully friendships will blossomand I’ll be a blessing and encouragement to all! So not had much opportunity to hang out with the younger kids, and I miss them!! Ooo we also all have taken de-parasting pills coz of the water, yummy!! But it seems i didn't have any, coz i didn't have any probs afterwards, whereas some peeps were on the loo for a few days as they got flushed out of their systems!

All you need is love…
So we’ve had Valentines day, hope you all had a lovely day and just to encourage you “lonely hearts” out there, here its’ the day of love AND friendship!! Much better I think! Maria Augusta and her family gave me a really lovely to surprise, I arrived home from Remar to find Maria had left a big bunch of marble effect roses, 24 in all!! Here the roses are dead cheap – one would never dream of buying that many in england ey?!! Only the most perfect roses are exported, so all those that are left, which are still really beautiful are sold here!! And very cheaply too! All flowers are, I paid about a quid for a big mixed bunch of flowers for Paquitas birthday which you’d pay I reckon 6 or 7 quid for in England!!

Reckon that’s all for now!! Enough for you to be reading for this week! Hope you’ve enjoyed it! Just to say today been painting murials in the church in the kiddies sunday school rooms...and that i have another cold! grr!!!
Oodles of love me xxxxxxxxxx

more photos!

2005-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

hey...
here is a link to see what "guava" a.k.a. Inga bean (cotton wool fruit) looks like
http://www.edible.co.nz/varieties/ingabean.htm

and this if you scroll down will lead you to a picture of 'taxo' (gooseberry fruit taste)
http://www.ecuador-travel.net/information.biodiversity.plants.pictures.htm
or check out this one... acrobat needed...
http://www.sica.gov.ec/agronegocios/productos%20para%20invertir/frutas/taxo/taxo_mag.pdf

and i've added some more photos to my yahoo photos, so have a squizz...
http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/fraggle_jo then click on the ''Ecuador'' folder...

first, a picture to show i'm not afraid to make a fool of myself - taken at the christmas party.
2nd - Maribel, one of the gels in Remar, sometimes helps me make cards in the afternoons after school
3rd - Father Christmas (24th Dec 2004) at the Remar Christmas Fiesta
4th - me!! taking a picture of myself, oo how vain!! :)
5th - Clare, Jules and Bev, posing with the 'Año Viejos' 31st Dec 2004
6th - on the beach 1st January 2005, Atacames....
7th - the Columbian border
8th - Carnaval, just before i got soaked L-R round the table = Pattie, Eduardo, Eduardo, Andrea, Pepe, Marilou, Anita, Armando, Paquita.

It’s raining men...

2005-02-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

Well, actually it’s not, but I has been raining so hard it could almost be like men were falling out of the sky! Felt quite at home yesterday (and today) with the rainy weather, a good old English winter’s day!!! (Actually strange as it may seem i-m missing a good old raining winter-s day in Sheffield!) Thursday it came on all of a sudden, and I didn’t have my paraguas (literally ‘for waters’ aka umbrella) with me yet had to walk about 20mins to ‘choir’ rehearsal in church. Needless to say I ended up pretty soaking wet, thankfully I was wearing 4 layers so it wasn’t through to my skin (well not on my top half at least!) The top layer (my rainbow coloured Ecuadorian ‘saco’ ‘jumpery-coat hybrid thingy) got nearly completely waterlogged (I could literally wring out water with my hands!), and the second layer a bit wet and the third just my shoulders. My trousers were soaked on the front to the skin all the way down, but on the back just my calves…and of course my feet were soaked too!! Oo what fun! And as theres no central heating, it takes an age for things to dry!!

Getting the groove
So, Bev and I took a night-time outing (actually started at 3pm when we met to catch the bus-which-never-came, then caught the trole and another bus and had a wee walk) to the “concert” Remar organized ‘A.O.A’ (Alabanza, oracion, adoracion = Praise, Prayer; Adoration). It was really great to go, and the “ever skeptical of stuff I reccomend” Bev really enjoyed herself (though poor thing she didn’t quite have the energy to ‘get down and boogey’ coz she was full of cold). The ‘bands’ were good each had 2 slots, first of all ‘Tony Tamayo’, an Ecuadorian guy, then Lily Goodman, think she’s originally Mexican, awesome black voice with latino gospelesque music, Mision, the Remar band (the kids of the pastor who is head of Remar Internacional which is based in Spain – it was really funny to hear them singing with the ‘th’, sounded really weird!!!) and finally Jaime Murrell, he’s quite a big wig in Latin America but I can’t remember where he’s from… The ‘concert’ started at 4pm and finished about 10.30…I remember thinking how on earth will they fill all that time, it seemed ages but we stayed till the end and it hardly felt like any time at all! Singing and praising and trying to translate lyrics for Bev!

We sat with the Remar lot, and it was really good to hang out with the kids and to see them worshipping and enjoying themselves, they have sooo much joy, its fantastic! We arrived, sat behind them all and it was funny to see the moment of realization that we were there on their faces, enthusiastic waves. It was really encouraging for Bev, the kids remembered her and some came running very enthusiastically and gave her huge big hugs…, it was hard though coz some were asking why she wasn’t in Remar anymore – hard to explain diplomatically anyway, but to kids! So that was really special. Ooo and they didn’t show the video, so it must be for Spain! Yeay, embarrassment avoided!

Been got…
Yes I did get got in Carnaval…during the week, someone sprayed me with a watergun from their car, it wasn’t much and I was actually very thankful coz it cooled me down on a very hot day! Some young lad (probably 20ish) ‘threatened’ me with a water bomb saying ‘agua’ (water), I just smiled and laughed, and he didn’t throw it! Obviously not the reaction he was expecting! Monday was THE day… Paquita, Armando and I took a day trip to ‘Pasochoa’ (a mountainy reserve thingy, not far from quito) to visit some friends of theirs who have a farm there, along with Marilou and Pepe and their granddaughter Anita, Pattie and Eduardo with their two kids, Eduardo (16) and Andrea (17- she plays guitar in the church music group). We went for a wee walk (though not up the proper Pasochoa, next to it), it started off really cold but then the sun came out and we were all baking!!! As we were going to leave I noticed a can of ‘Carioka’, a foam used in carnaval and foolishly commented on it as Yolanda (the owner of the farm) proceeded to spray me alittle with it, then Marilou snatched it and ‘completely ‘ covered paquita and I!!! Armando took a picture so hopefully i-ll be able to show you guys!! Wasn’t a bad experience as it’s quite sweet smelling but that wasn’t the end of my carnaval fun! Paquita had thought before we left ‘oh we’ll just fill up a few wee bottles just in case’, so then we tried to get Marilou back through the car windows as we drove to get some lunch… we were arrived, Paquita ‘jumped’ on Marilou and there was a comedy struggle with Marilou managing to get hold of the wee bottle, Paquita holding on to her waist trying to dodge the water – Marilou managed to wet her own back more than Paquita…

yummy lunch, then afterwards… water!!! First of all Eduardo hijo (son) got me alittle, then I got in the car and egged on by paquita I sprayed pepe as he was trying to get into his car – well then war started! Though I ended up the worst off since I just had something that sprayed and pepe had bottles of water! Spray versus big ‘chunks’ of water, no contest really – I ended up nearly soaked through and Pepe hardly a dribble! Grr!!! So on the way home kept trying to get them through the car windows! Very comedy!!! My stomach hurt from laughing so much! So that was my serious Carnaval experience. When I went out and about on tuesday I was looking at every person suspiciously thinking ‘are they gonna throw something?’, somebody tried (from a car I think) but the bomb missed me… but then I got “got” my the sky (it started raining!). Another part of the celebrations is to use egg and flour (as they used to in my school at the end of the year until it was banned!), I’m glad I missed that part of the celebrations!!

The Remar news…
Well I had mon and tues off for Carnaval so only went in on wed, thurs, and fri. Half day wednesay spent doing cards, it was alittle frustrating coz during the time I’d been away somebody had helped themselves to all the herramientas making it pretty hard to work but I only had one girl (well she’s not really a girl, 20!), first time I’ve met her, just recently come to Remar to spend 3 months (that’s all the amount of days Ecuador allows Columbians to enter generally… she’s a friend of Migdaler who runs the boys home).. I was quite impressed with myself that we conversed, struggled for words and said loads of things wrong I’m sure but it was good! Thursday in the kitchen, bible club, hanging with the kids… Francis was very sweet, already telling me not to leave and I’ve still got 7 months with them (!), asking why I wouldn’t stay any longer… I said coz this is the amount of time God has said and he’s what matters… and she was saying no I’m more important, more powerful… it’s gonna be hard to leave… though I was thinking the other day, it’s great being here but I wouldn’t want to do just this for the rest of my life, just helping in the kitchen or running the card-business, there’s more that my brain can do.. i.e. psychology, and I’d feel that would be more helpful in the long run… Friday morning was spent on the cards again just with Olivia… then I had to take the cards to hand them over to the Christian bookshop. Wee bit scary, had to fill out a ‘factura’ (bill), for the first time on behalf of Remar, in Spanish… amazed I understood it and all was fine.

San Valentin
As you all know ‘Valentines day’ is on tuesday, but here it’s celebrated as the day of love and friendship – which I think is much better, coz then all can celebrate (sad fact, never ever received a valentines card in England… ahhhh). Last night I didn’t go to youth as I was recommended by Pedro not to go (not sure what they got up to…) instead I went to the house of Pepe and Marilou where Paquita and Armando go for a couples group – it wasn’t a normal week (they’re working through ‘Una vida con proposito’ – The purpose-driven life’) but a gathering to celebrate San Valentin and friendship. We had a BBQ – in the rain , you might be asking?? (…my family in England have been known to BBQ in the rain, with Dad standing out side by the BarB under an umbrella!!) – but the house of pepe and marilou has a covered terrace and there is a built in BBQ thingy! It was very scrummy, then afterwards we had a wee ‘game’… each person had to choose a name from a bag then make a Valentine’s card using some large hearts (that I’d cut for Paquita, not knowing what for) and sticking bits and pieces on it for one of the other people there. We had 20minutes to make it then took turns in giving our cards to our person. It was a really lovely thing to do, Andrea made mine and wrote something really lovely on it, I was very touched. Afterwards the ‘adults’ started to reminisce old songs (Pepe and Eduardo “grande” very good guitarists), Andrea and Eduardo “hijo” (son) weren’t too interested in that, so we went downstairs and played ping pong, rather hilarious and very exhausting (I’m sooo unfit). I felt really relaxed with them and managed to converse in spanish, I’m growing more confident all the time – I still don’t understand everything (80%??) but obviously lack a lot of language but I’m doing more than getting by. It was VERY late night though, we arrived back at 2am (!!! Would you believe it?!, me out that late! J hee hee) and then outside someone’s car alarm kept going off all night long, so I haven’t slept well, grrr!!!

Food corner
Keeping up with tradition here’s some food updates! This week I ate cottonwool –not literally, the fruit of Guava (not what we call guava, that’s guayaba here – after some search on the internet i discovered in English it’s called Inga Bean)… it looks abit like a giant runner bean and is generally grown in the coast (some are grown in the Sierra, mountains, but they’re smaller) – inside are pieces of ‘fruit’ that look like cotton wool, about the size of a date, inside is a large black pip. They’re abit slippery and there’s a real technique to eating them which I haven’t mastered yet – though it’s quite a tasty fruit and well worth trying. Last night I tried ‘mote pilla’, which is traditional dish from Cuenca (one of the largest cities in the south), it consists of mote (a type of maiz), egg, milk, onion fried in achiote (red coloured oil) – quite tasty!

Other news
Rather ‘grossly’ caught some more wee beasties this week – every time I wash my hair I go through it with a nit comb, and this week I caught some more wee wrigglers (and squished them to death!) – with the number of kids that there are in Remar, it’s nigh on impossible to eliminate nits, so I will keep on catching them (grr)… unless I refused to ever pick the kids up, hug them, let them sit on me, and that would be harsh!!! The things one does for love!!
You know how I go on about the maschismo culture… well there’s an advert for one of the Ecuador beers called Pilsner and it’s a joke on the culture of men saying ‘psssttt’ when they see a ‘hottie’… there’s a beautiful girl walking along she hears ‘pssst’ and what she thinks is a rather uncouth comment about her, so turns round to give these lads an ear-full but she discovers that the sound was from a beer and so laughs…. – did I make any sort of sense?

Think i-m waffling, best be off before you think ive lost my marbles… there wont be an update next sat as Im taking a trip with stuart and janeth (other latin link couple in quito). Hope youre all well, KEEP IN TOUCH!!! Oodles of love, miss you, xxxx

Let loose on Remar...

2005-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Another week has flown byand the 3 month mark has been reached! I can barely believe it, and although I’ve still 7 months left, it hardly seems like any time at all! It’s all very strange! What a week it's been, here goes…

Upset
You’ll probably remember rather unpleasantly that last week I had some tummy issues, well, this week I’ve had some more… all week not feel up to par, had very little appetite, had a day of feeling nauseas then wednesday night the dreaded ‘Montezumas revenge’ (I think that’s the name? Do correct me!!) hit – not a pleasant night! Nuff said!! So thursday was my first sick day off Remar, just chilled and recuperated on me bed, reading, listening to music and watching some trashy telenovelas (one of which has a Columbian Jamie Cullum, Lynda I’ll see if I can find you a picture! – I keep seeing people and likening them to you lot… so far I’ve seen a Katie Smith, a Chris Thornton, a Chris Simkins, a Claire Diggins, a Prince William (but he was Spanish.. a bullfighter on the posters, though Bev completely disagreed with me! But then I remember often I’d say to my housemates, ‘oh, he/she looks like so and so’ and they’d be like ‘no’.), who else? Think that’s it for now.. oo an Ecuadorian version of the actor who plays Che Guevara in Motorcycle Diaries – but that one’s abit random!). Really starting to miss English food! When I was ill I wanted trifle sponges, like my mum used to give me when I was ill, then I had ‘cravings’ for caramel shortbread, if only! When people have stomach upsets here, they know to take jelly (though I think this is just paquita and not all ecuadorians!) and chamomile tea (i don't mean together!)

Carnaval
In several countries before lent it’s traditional to celebrate Carnaval (I’m sure you’ve all heard of the decadence in the Brasilian carnivals, all those beautiful, though rather skimpy, outfits and headdresses!). Here in Ecuador we don’t have a celebration like Brasil, the tradition rather is just to throw water bombs (I’ve heard in Bolivia, this can be rather more vicious filled with paint or stones), and sometimes sprayage of coloured foam. I’ve not been got seriously, yet. A week or so ago, one narrowly missed me… then I got wetted abit by Hector, one of the boys in Remar… then today, I was walking along the road completely in my own little world, thinking whatever I was thinking and BOOOM::::::::: one hit me, but they weren’t a very good aim – just got my ankle and as I had ¾ lengths on, it didn’t bother me! But it did make me jump!!!!!!! Not looking forward to being out and about this weekend and mon/tues (holiday), coz I’m bound to be got!!! And it don’t matter about the weather to the throwers!

Los gringos vinieron (the Americans came)….
A bunch of gringos, mas o menos (more or less) my age, have arrived at Remar. They’re gonna come for 2 days a week over the next 2 months to do some building work – the only thing is there aren’t funds to buy the stuff to build with, so don’t know what they’re gonna do! Ooo today came across (though didn’t speak to) a bunch of English girls in my internet café, they looked like post-uni travelers to me.. it was really comedy (for some reason, don’t know why) to hear the English accent! It sounds so proper! Ooo remember I said somebody questioned that I spoke English… funny anecdote… a friend of mine Mary commented on it and said that when she was in LA once that a lady there when she found my friend was from England said,’"but you're from england? you have learnt english really good"– hello!!!!!!!!!!

Silly voices r us….
Since there weren't any card orders to work on mon + wed I spent those days in the kitchen (as well as me usual tues) with Clarita and Tania. Clara and I have started to speak in silly voices to each other – finally my crazy side is being let loose on Remar, I have a partner in crime! We’ve spoken in front of the children, and generally they’re completely bemused and don’t know what to think!! The reaction of Francis was particularly priceless, she just stared wide-eyed!! Hee hee. Later on in the week, we had Vanessa (a girl of 10) hanging out with us in the kitchen during the afternoon and she seemed to appreciate our craziness!!!
I was touched this week that Lili (one of the other Tia's in charge, Tati’s right hand woman) called me ‘Joanita’, when a person adds an ‘ita’ on the end it’s a sign of affection! So that was nice!

Purple…
This week instead of managing to ‘lastimar’ (damage) my hands, I turned my nails purple! I was chopping purple cabbage and the result was slightly purple fingers, which didn’t take long to go, and purple nails, which have taken longer!!! Next comes the food slot… every so often some of the police come to drop off a food donation, which usually serves as a ‘colacion’ (a snack)… this week they brought ‘aplanchados’ (planchar, meaning to iron), little puff pastry like pastries, with a sugary sweet flat bit stuck on top, about half the size of your average shop-bought flapjack, yummmmyy. The other new thing this week was an ‘emborajado’, it’s consists of platano de seda (that’s a normal everyday banana to you and me) cut in slices with cheese in between (oo alittle aside, the cheese here is pants, give me a good old bit o mature cheddar anyday!! Oo arr) covered in a pancake-like batter and fried – very tasty! Bet you never thought of doing that with bananas did yer? They’re very inventive with the way they prepare food here, in comparison we’re pretty boring! At some point I'll tell you all about the different things they do with broad beans!

Famous for five minutes….
Or rather ‘completely making a fool of myself for 5 minutes’… I shall explain… as I’ve said before, we’ve got this concert tomorrow to raise funds for the Fundacion, yesterday Remar was completely mental, people running round, artists arriving, last minute preps, but there was also a couple with a camcorder recording life in Remar with Tati giving little explainations. First of all me and me card girls were dragged down to the Costurero (sewing room) to pose at the machines behind Tati whilst she spoke a little to 2 of the real sew-ers. Then they came to record us making cards, and they decided to ask me questions…………. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Speak? ‘on TV’? on the spot with no prior thought of what to say? in Spanish? – you must be joking – but oh no, that’s what I had to do!! I reckon I must of looked a complete fool, and I bet a spoke terrible Spanish – I know I kept repeating the word ‘lindo’ several million times! I hope they don’t show it today but I think they will…….aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! embarrassment! N’er mind, only got 7 months more in the country and no-one will have seen it in england, i'll soon be able to live it down!

La, la, la….
Being in the choir on sunday, went well, didn’t remember all the tunes completely but i managed to bluff it! Went to rehearsal again on thursday night and very excitingly taught them the Spanish version of ‘over the mountains and the sea’. yeay. they'd heard the song before but didn't have the words or the chords which i obligingly provided! that's about all for this week... what's been happening in your lives? TELL ME!!!!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I've been to the middle of the world...

2005-01-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Well actually it probably isn’t exactly the middle of the world but that’s what it’s called -‘Mitad del Mundo’… I went with Maria Augusta and her two girls, first to Remar’s boys home then to the monument. There are about 30 boys (a few girls) in the home which is run by Migdaler and her husband (she’s 2 children and a baby). Mitad del Mundo is about half an hour from Quito, and where the house is situated the road is really not worthy of the name ‘road’, it's more of a bumpy (extremely) dust track. There are no names to the roads either so we had a wee bit of trouble finding it but we got there in the end. It’s a very dry, dusty, hot place – glad my ‘placement’ isn’t there! It was really lovely to visit them all though but we weren’t there very long. It has a very different feel to the girls home, it’s much more relaxed and chilled, and feels a lot more like a proper home – the problem with the girls home is that it’s the hubbub of everything and contains the school in the same building so it’s not very homely!! So then we went to the monument and what is apparently a line that divides the north and south equators… but it’s abit dubious (Paquita thinks it might have changed anyway as a result of Tsunami, is that possible??). It was a nice trip though and got my photo duly taken in front of it! Had a scrumptious lunch (there I go again about food!!) of llapingachos, which are potato patties served with a fried egg, chorizo (type of sausage) as well as avocado, beetroot and salad. yummy!

This week in Remar…
Only a wee bit of cardmaking this week, just finishing off an order from the week before – no new ones coz Maria is thinking in other things (the mother of Paquita and Maria died a week ago yesterday). So, I spent the vast majority of the week helping in the kitchen. Sometimes I struggle with the fact that I’m not actually spending time with the kids, but then I remind myself that they are in school till lunchtime and what I’m doing helps the general running of things… but a real positive to working in the kitchen has been to get to know Clara. She arrived just before Christmas, she lives in the ‘Mothers’ home which is for women as well, she ‘admitted herself’ to get free of drugs and alcohol. We’ve started to become friends and have quite a laugh with each other – and it means I’m actually speaking!! (with the kids generally you don’t have conversations). We’ve had some really good conversations not least about stuff to do with God and the Bible.

Joanna the breadwinner…
Well, not so much breadwinner but breadcarrier! Normally after bible club Maria Augusta and I go to fetch ‘pan’ (bread) from a panaderia factory which donates their leftovers from their shops. Maria didn’t come this week but Remar still needed their bread, so I went on foot!!! Took a girl with me each time for the hour round trip up hill then down. Thursday was much harder work coz the sun was out and extremely hot! But Fabiola (14) and I carried a bin-bag each on our heads – the most comfortable way of carrying it which also gave us shade! Would’ve made for a fantastic photo opportunity if only I’d had my camera with me!

The kids…
Had again this week that I have a big nose like Pinochio!!! These kids don’t hold back what they think! But neither do they hold back on affection, they love giving and receiving hugs so that makes up for it! Oo sweet thing, one of the girls helping with cards whilst her teachers are on strike, Jajaira (15), has taken to calling me ‘ñaña’ which is quechua for ‘hermana’, sister…
2 new wee ones arrived this week, abandoned by their mum – Juan Diego (3, a little ‘gordito’ …chubby) and his sister Jennifer (4, in comparison rather thin). Poor wee Juan Diego hardly been in Remar 24 hours and he’s broken his arm – some notice type boards fell on him… ‘pobrecito’ (poor thing).

Pesky students…
Those pesky university students have been out demonstrating again, well they have reason the presidente is doing some naughty stuff, but I don’t appreciate my eyes streaming from the gas!!! Monday was particularly bad, the worst yet, our eyes were streaming in the house and I left in a cloud of the stuff! But tuesday was better, only a wee bit of gas and the rest of the week, the students were still out in force down the road but there was no gas. Hopefully next week it will have calmed down completely!

Hands
Sore point of the week, my hands are looking rather worse for wear!! i'm abit dangerous when peeling veg, well, i'd be fine with a veg peeler but we use knives! Wednesday i got a nasty sore blister from dealing with Yuca (bit like a sweet potatoe in shape with tough brown wrinkly skin but suave creamy white inside) - i had to 'skin' and cut alot of it and a nasty blister developed and burst!! mmm lovely! so then it made it difficult to peel other veg and yesterday i ended up 'slicing' my little finger of my left hand... only a flesh wound, no blood but it stings!!! pobrecita me, ai is me... hee hee :)

"Youth"
went to youth group (or rather young professionals) again last friday (though not last nite, went to the cinema instead with dave and bev as dave was up for the weekend from ambato. we saw 'the forgotton' or mysterious obsesion as it's translated in spanish... good psychological type thrillery thing) again it was good, though found it a little harder to understand people than my first time! we have a wee time of singing and they noticed how i harmonise and asked if i'd like to join 'the choir'... so on thursday i went along to rehearsal for the first time -scary! Lovely people, though not sure i've got the hang of the songs yet, and as Armando put it, i've got my debut on sunday! It's cool coz it's another way to get to know more people in the church, and hopefully i'll be a blessing too!

That’s about all for this week, had a wee bit of a dodgy tum yesterday and today, not serious but dunno what caused it, perhaps a chocolate donut i bought?! My sweet tooth is getting me intot trouble! Grrr!!! Hope you’re all well! Keep in touch!

Jo xxxxxxxxxxxx

oops forgot to add the photo!

2005-01-24T17:52:00.000-08:00

here's what guanabana looks like
(fraid you'll just have to touch the link, it won't let me put the picture on! grrr!!!)

http://www.ac-guadeloupe.fr/Cati971/PEDAGO/Espagnol/Guanabana.htm

oo summat a meant to say, people have thought i am canadian, german and french ....hmmm. the one i most prefer is canadian but der, i'm english! OO comedy moment the other day, i've taken to going to a resturant called 'Fruteria Montserrat' nearly every friday lunch (just a min from Remar), and they're reckonising me now... anyways this waitress came and gave me my order and asked if i was from USA... i said NO, england... she said 'do you speak english?' (der!!! we invented english!!)... i said 'yes'... she said 'Alot?'... slightly stunned i said yes again! then she asked if i gave lessons to which i replied no, but that's by the by, the funny thing was somebody questioning whether we spoke English in England!!!

out of the mouth of babes
more funny stuff the kids have said to me... i have had children say i have a nose like pinochio several times!!! it's enough to give a girl a complex! though a lovely comment was 'you have nice hands'.... not so lovely... why are your eyes like that? (refering to the reddish, purplish colouring under my eyes!)... most forward question "are you divorced or married?" ... it was kinda shocking that those were the two options the boy came up with!!

that's it... ooo it's monday now and those pesky students are at it again causing havoc... eyes steaming and stinging as i left remar from the teargas, and there was a man filming the scene, so maybe i'll be on national TV tonite?!!! xx

I've been to Columbia...

2005-01-22T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well hello its me again!!! I have soooo much to tell you all which hopefully you will enjoy, 2 weeks worth – I took a last minute trip upcountry with Armando to Tulcan, and to Columbia but more about that later… first thing I wanted to say was, please tell me what you think of my blog, like how I can improve it, whether there’s stuff you’d really like to know.. also you can make comments about what I’ve said, that I or other people can read. You do this by clicking on “comments” at the bottom of an entry, then clicking on "post a comment".

First things first, food!
I seem to always say alittle about food so I’m going to keep up the tradition, and there’s lots of little differences that I think it’s something worth telling people about! Have a told you about all the weird and wonderful fruits before? Well last week I tried another new fruit ‘Guanabana’ .. hopefully a picture should appear below…

it’s abit of a weird fruit can’t put my finger on the taste, it’s nice but it is weird, and extremely messy (well it is when I eat it anyway!) coz it has these huge big pips which you can only get out when you’re chewing the flesh in your mouth, it’s abit of a battle, so in go the fingers and voila, mess, juice running all down my hands! Also had taxo…not eaten it as fruit but as juice, tastes abit like gooseberry’s but it’s not gooseberry. Oo pepino dulce, another we don’t have, the taste is a cross between cucumber and sandia, very watery. I’ve decided that on the whole I much prefer the fruits I’ve know before, rather than these random new ones, they just seem like variations on a theme –though some are delicious (Badea)… If you’re veggie skip the next few lines… I ate a traditional dish that paquita made, it’s very popular and cheap… bed of lettuce, avocado, potatoe, salsa thing and cuero - pig skin. Cuero isn’t like our cracking on a roast, it’s cooked so that it’s squadgy. It wasn’t very nice, but I tried to eat as much as I could out of courtesy! Me thinks, never again! Oooo highlight – salt and vinegar crisps!!! What? salt and vinegar crisps I hear you say? Yes, salt and vinegar crisps… they don’t exist here and I’m rather partial to a pack every now and then… so when jules (strider in SD) said her parents where coming and was there anything that I’d like them to bring, I said a good olde pack of walkers… and last week it dutifully came! Rather forlorn looking from it’s long trip, its contents mostly mashed into smitherines but boy it tasted good! Um ummmm.

Random bits
One thing I forgot to say about the beach was that we saw people with socks and sandles!!! It’s not just us crazy brits that insist on this madness (well, it’s mad in my eyes but I can see the practical side!).
Oo Emmie and Ashan, been hearing Lifehouse on the radio, some new stuff!!!
The other day I heard a Tim Hughes song ‘Here I am…’ in Spanish and also MercyMe’s ‘I can only imagine’…both of which sound beautiful in Spanish!
And, does anyone know who on earth Alan Parson’s is? Of the ‘Alan Parsons Live Project’? They’ve been advertising him on radio and TV for weeks!! I don’t have a clue, some old dude with a bad mullet! –ooo Suzanne if you ever read this, you’d do well with your mullet hairdresser shop here, I’ve seen plenty o beauties! Not!

Machismo
You’ve heard me moan on before about the men here… it’s such a machisisimo culture (male chauvnist)… just yesterday I was sitting in my usual internet café near Remar emailing away quite happily and these business men arrive and sit round the computer next to me…didn’t take long for the most sleazy to say ‘Hello missus’… arghhhh, my skin crawled and he did it several times! Argghhh!!! It pervades all levels of society… the other I was walking back from ringing my mum for her birthday one lunchtime and I passed a guy with his girlfriend, I repeat, with his girlfriend, who said “Hola mi amor, buenas tardes” with a lovely sleazy look on face and sound in his voice (Hello, my love, good afternoon). But at the same time there are some real gentlemen, who’ve obviously been taught well by their mothers, like today on the trole… chocker bus, someone got up from a seat nearish me and a young fella stretched across to tap me on the hand to see if I wanted it. Also Max, one of Armando’s nephews (17), when we went to Columbia, always ‘made me’ go first when we had to pass people on the street (which to be honest did get alittle annoying went it meant we had to switch places… but I can understand why in terms of safety… keeping on eye on the lady) and when we crossed the road he put out his arm to guard me from on coming cars (never had that before!!) So they’re not all bad, but the male chauvinism is way worse than Eng.

My first diagnosis (clever me!)
There’s a boy called Sebastian who spends the day at Remar whilst his mother works… I first met him when I was helping with school. I noticed how he just didn’t seem to be with it, he couldn’t concentrate and wasn’t interacting well with the other children. Since then they’ve given up trying to teach him and he just wanders round often aimlessly, or in search of a palo or escoba (stick, broom) with which he has a fixation. He’s not stupid, he can speak and understands all that you say but he can’t interact normally with his peers or others, and you can often find him hitting the other children as they tease him. He finds it very hard to concentrate on doing anything and if you tell him to stop doing something, you have to tell him several times – it’s not that he doesn’t understand, he just can’t seem to stop. Because of the inability to concentrate and to stop doing something I thought ADHD – Attentional Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – then I heard Tati talking to the social worker, and she said autism and I though ah yes that’s exactly it, that’s the word I was looking for. Autism often it co-incides with ADHD (I think, I can’t quite remember my studies). So I didn’t have the completely right name but I’d noticed all the symptoms.

Jo the plumber!!! (would you believe it)
Been helping in the kitchen again… one of the sinks doesn’t have a grate thingy so everything just goes down it… when I do the washing up I use the other for doing the cleaning bit and this one just for rinsing… but not everyone thinks the way I do, so it often gets blocked… normally a bit of plunging does the trick but not this time! I first I asked if Jairo was around (handyman) as I didn’t want to do any damage but he wasn’t so we took things into our own hands, literally! We disconnected the pipes under the sink and I took them outside to have a look, ended up taking apart some more bits and discovered the tube was completely blocked with rice and finally a big chunk of potato!!! Cleaned it out, put those bits back together and connected it back up!! Yesterday I had to do the same again, this time it was a big old broad bean! (oo which incidentally I have tried sugared this week!) So Ecuador is teaching me about plumbing!

Oo comedy moment, nearly fainted coz a girl get her thumb real bad!

Life in Remar
Started back making cards, though my girls have completely changed! Alittle frustrating but there we go, one has to ‘roll with the punches’. Had a good time, though sometimes (actually most of the time) the girls speak so incredibly fast that I haven’t a clue what they’re saying! This week we changed the cardmaking days to mon, wed, fri so now I can get back to joining in bible club on tues and thurs (and help in the kitchen, play with the kids the rest of the day)… so that’s cool. I must say it has been nice to have a break from cardmaking coz I get to spend time with the kids. Had one particularly fun afternoon with a huge skipping rope (just a normal piece of rope), which me and Carolina swung whilst various kids jumped in and out and tried to better each other – the most jumps reached was 69!!! I only managed 2, but I am extremely out of practice not having skipped since school! Go to know some more tiddlers who have been very sweet when I’ve said I’ve got to leave now, saying ‘No te vayas, no te vayas’ (don’t go, don’t go) and clingin onto my legs and an effort to stop me walking! There’s one little girl, Laydee, who’s my friend again – she’d gone shy of me for some reason for quite a while but she’s taken a shine to me again which was nice… she’s 6years old and has the most darling laugh and smile, and she’ll laugh at almost anything! If I was in Ecuador for life, and was married and could adopt her and her brother and sister, I would! They’re a handful but lovely!

Sophia
One little girl I spend quite abit of time with is Sophia, she’s cute as and I’ve started mimicking her baby speech (she’s 2). The other afternoon we were all outside sucking on a colacion (snack) of icelollies, and some of the kids asked why I was there… so I explained God wanted me to be there because he loves them, and wee Sophia, who was stood facing me as I was sat down, piped up ‘Dios me ama?’ (God loves me?), and I said yes, he loves all of you, and she repeated ‘Dios me ama? Y me mami tambien?’ (her mum is 17 and lives in Remar)… yes I repeated, God loves you and your mummy aswell. She had a look of great delight (and confusion I think!) on her face, it was a precious moment coz I’m sure that was the first time she’d been told that God loves her.

“Youth group”
Finally I went to ‘youth group’ for the first time (though I think I was the youngest there!!! Just to remind you youth roughly means from about the age of 16 to any age if you’re not married, but there are actually some newly weds too). It was abit of a battle to get there. I’d been feeling a wee prodding that now was the time to go, that I actually needed to do something active about making some proper ecua friends but I was really nervous and anxious and unsure. I’d been thinking about asking Paquita about going but on thursday I decided I’d put it off for another week after all I was really tired and blah, blah, blah. But God had other plans…at dinner time Paquita asked me what I was going to do on friday, whether I wanted to join them, go to youth or stay in!!! So I had to fess up!!! Slightly to my annoyance but really to my relief, and she was very encouraging saying I didn’t need to worry, that they were a really lovely bunch, always cracking jokes and having fun, and that she’d ring Rafael to ask if he could lift me home. So on friday, slightly nervously I went, and it was fine, really good in fact – Paquita was completely right, they are lovely and really funny (never a dull moment – lots of extroverts!). I had a really good evening and decided I’d definitely go back! I didn’t understand all they said and made a COMPLETE hash of it when I tried to pray in Spanish so much so that my ‘partner’ said I could pray in English next time!!! (you have to laugh!!!!!!) but hey ho, I keep on!

Columbia
Yeah, so last weekend I took a last minute trip with Armando up country to his parents town of Tulcan (we planned to set off at 7am but didn’t end up leaving until 10am coz of camioneta ‘truck’ trouble…). The journey was lindisimo (beautiful), so much to see and take in… unfortunately the mountain tops were covered so I couldn’t see them (on the way back too) but that didn’t matter really. Stopped at a roadside ‘café’ and ate (there I go again) choclo (one of the 6, yes 6, different types of sweetcorn – and I bet you thought there was only one!) and fried meat – very tasty! 4 hour journey… I had wee rest at Armando’s parents house while he ran a few errands…then we set off to Ipiales, the nearest Columbian town, just 10mins over the border in the company of Anna Cristina, one of Armando’s numerous cousins, and her son Max. Didn’t have to show any papers or anything to cross!! But I’ve got a picture of the border to prove I went! Basically went there to shop, Columbians make very good clothes and ropa interior and it’s really cheap – Armando says they’re the best copiers (fakers!!) in the world, very talented with hand-made stuff. Weird coz that place isn’t out of the war but I didn’t feel at all unsafe… the only strange thing was seeing the army’s sand bag ‘huts’ on street corners. I think if I’d been with other gringos, it would have been a different matter but as I was with ‘locals’ I felt fine. Oo back on food again I ate the weirdest mix of a sweet fried batter inside which was sausage, ham and cheese, and a grape flavoured cola which tasted of sweets (urghhh).
Next day we took an early morning trip to Tulcan cemetery which is famed for being romantic… which surprisingly it was, not at all sad… they say it’s the happiest place in Tulcan… it’s filled with pine trees cut into allsorts of amazing sculptures, animals, people, randomn designs. Then we popped aback into Columbia to visit Las Lajas.. a sort of Catolica pilgrimage site where there’s a church and hot water that people bathe in to get healed ( and than thank Mary… hmmm…..). And then we traveled back to Quito, taking a slightly different route at points… saw fields of potatoes, cane sugar, quinoa (mum!!), stopped off at another Mary thing, a grotto that had formed where a bit of a mountain had fallen into the river gorge, and the river still runs through it giving hot water (people again bath in wee pools for health).

Oo I think I’ve written quite enough, you’re eyes must be getting tired!!!! Well I hope you’ve enjoyed this latest instalment, I look forward to receiving yours (hint, hint!! Hee hee) Take care one and all, till next time
Oodles of love
Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
p.s. I’ve actually written this friday night so you’ll have to wait for news of sat for next week, I’m taking a trip to the mitad el mundo

Sun, sea, sand, sunburn and lobster

2005-01-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!! Hope you all had a fabuloso time. Lots to tell, so here goes!

As you could tell from the title this week I did get to the beach!! And all four of us managed to go (at one point it looked like just two of us)!! Bev, Jules (strider in Santo), Clare (long-termer in Santo) and me. Bev and I traveled down to Santo on the 30th then we went together to Atacames on the 31st. Interesting journey, thankfully we had seats, I reckon there were 30 odd seats, but we doubled almost tripled in number with people standin up in the aisles, getting on and off at various points (on the way back we had to stand for an hour but then got seats!! yeay!! 4hr journey standing all the way would not be nice!! Shared part of it with a live chicken, could hear chicks cheeping and a piglet squealing too!). Having soo many people squished on made it a wee bit difficult to get off. I was really glad I had a window seat not least for the air to combat travel sickness (windy roads!), but i love taking in the view along the way which were beautiful, lush green jungly type vegetation, wee wooden houses on stilts with balconys of plants, ranches of cows, caught our first glimpses of horses. It was also good being near the window as it gradually got hotter and hotter the nearer we got to the coast.

El Tiburon (the shark), y Tahiti
We arrived around about lunchtime to our hotel 'the shark' and it was pretty minging! Box room, the windows weren’t set properlyand there was no mozy net on them (so we had to keep them shut and nearly faint from the heat), you had to step up about 2 feet to get into the bathroom and squeeze through a tiny doorway which was partially blocked by one of the beds! Needless to say we set about looking for somewhere else quick smartish! We spent just one night at that hotel and spent the other 2 at another which was a much nicer affair.. spacious room and baño (bathroom), pool as well, only thing was (well, didn’t bother me) that the fan sounded like a helicopter was in the room with us and we found a cockroach which Jules squished with my trainer - lovely!!! but we much prefered it there!

The beach itself was hot and sunny and the waves pretty powerful (I nearly got wiped out a couple of times jumping them!), and also very chocker with people!! Lots of Ecuadorian holiday-makers over for new years – by monday morning it was almost deserted!!

The food was fab, I’m not a great seafood fan but it what i had was really tasty… ate lots of prawns and squid (emmie + liz remember the baby ones i ate in barce?). On the last day for almuerzo (lunch) we got a seafood platter between the four of us for $12, which at the current exchange rate is just about 6 quid. It contained: prawns, scallops (bit too chewy for my liking), mussels (hmmm, bit too 'fishy'), crab (not much meat on them is there?!- who ever said i was fussy?), big ‘battered’ fish, half a wee lobster (how much would that cost alone in England??), plate of rice and menestra (lentil stew), a bowl of ceviche (ecua speciality - fish soup), a plate of maduros (sweet banana fried, very yummy!) and a jug of lemonade (not Sprite but proper stuff made with lemons!! Though i think they rather overdosed on the sugar as it tasted rather like a sherbert lemon!) Ooo very exciting.. beach is lined with wee bars which tend to have music blarring most of the time (gets abit much when it’s the same songs over and over again…) merengue beats driving you crazy.. one particular song ‘Za za za’… argghhhh!! Though did hear some REM (random!!!) and some Bob Marley (they like their reggae here!) oo got sidetracked… at one I had 3 types of icecream in a pineapple for 50p!!! yuuummmmyyyy!! + bargainious!

Mainly we just chilled on the beach, paddling in the water, and sitting in deck chairs (the all important shade, being near the equator the sun can be particularly fierce! people can get 3rd degree burns from ecuadorian beaches!). Somehow I managed to get a wee bit of sunburn on my back and some rather random patterns of my feet (dodgy application of suntan lotion!!!) but wasn’t bad, didn’t hurt abit! Oo we went to the Aquatic ´museum´ which was just outside our hotel. Basically it was a slightly (not much) glorified shed (open sides from shoudlers up, thatched roof, all made of wood) with about 30 cases of sea life exhibits.. I use the word life when infact some of them contained dead things… mmm, lovely… but my guide book did warn us! Sad thing was to see 2 turtles in a glorified bucket, dirty water, nothing to do except swim round and round in wee circles, poor things!! Was interesting though!

New Year Celebrations…
The big tradition here is to burn ‘Año Viejos’ (old years). They are men made of old clothes and stuffed with sawdust or whatever one can find (similar to our Guy Faulkes creations). Paquita told me a funny story of a friend who lives in England who made one out of her English husbands workclothes… she went to burn it in a park and was most dismayed to find it wouldn’t set alight… so she went home and then realized that her husbands clothes are fireproof!! Doh!!! It was a good job it didn’t light coz the authorities might not have been best pleased… unlike in england, here in Ecuador they can burn anything, anywhere…so when it comes to new year people are burning their año viejos here there and everywhere! When these old men are burned it symbolizes the ‘old year’ with all it’s bad bits going and being forgotten. The other part of the tradition is that men dress up as widows and ask passers by for ‘caridad’ (charity) since their old man is going to die and they will be left destitute! These widows put up barriers (usually a piece of string) next to their old man, and in order to pass you have to pay them a ‘centavo’. All very amusing and I think the men really enjoy dressing up in drag!

In Quito the Año Viejo’s are made of material and you can buy them all over the place, and also masks to put on their heads… but in Atacames the vast majority are made of paper mache. Some were politicians, some were animals, some of Spiderman…all sorts… got a good picture of some which I will provide a link for a some point! The little ones costed $18 and the large $30!! We spoke to the lady that made them and she said she’d been at it since June!!! It’s a very important tradition… so Friday night we got to see them being burning on the beach and the road that runs along the top of it… they also set off lots of fireworks (health and safety!! kids picking them up and throwing them... there had been warnings that there have been some extremely powerful fireworks this year which are really dangerous, burning a huge area suurounding them because of too much gunpowder!!! hmmm, needless to say we didn't get close!). We burnt some wee sparklers that my gap year room mate sent me (very exciting!!), hung out on the beach abit watching the goings on and went to bed about 1ish… oo earlier when it turned midnight English time, clare and jules insisted on singing old lang’syne (how you spell it? Not like that!!) much to the disapproval of bev! hee hee...

Back to Quito
Returned to Quito on tues… and during our bus journey bev and i received a biology lesson from a traveling salesman who was selling a wonder pill which supposedly helps with cirrohis of the liver, pMT, blood disorders, gastritis, prostate cancer, cholestorol, and so much more, suitable for all ages – likely story!! He told us all about PMT, prostate, liver and kidney problems. Bus journeys here are never dull, there’s always someone trying to sell something! It's something you should experience!

Started back at Remar on wednesday… I was enthusiastically greeted by people which was really encouraging! This week mainly been spending time with the kids which has been really good and helped in the kitchen quite abit too… Couple of things the kids have said this week which are kind of funny: I was told I have eyes like a cat (I have ‘green’ and they all have brown), that I have a nose like pinochio and why is my nose shaped as it is? Kids ey?! No shame!! I was also told my Marcelo that I speak ‘medio raro’.. slightly strange… not sure whether he meant my voice, my accent, or my Spanish!!! Also got asked by an 11-yr-old boy for advice on relationships… he was in an quandary… 2 gels he really liked and he didn’t know which too choose… I was touched that he asked me, showed me that I’d being accepted by the kids… though my advice he didn’t like (wait, don’t make a rash decision), he wanted me to say one or the other.

Names
Here in Ecuador they use all sorts of names to refer to people, and I have been called most of them! ‘Mi vida’ , my life, ‘Mi amor’, my love, ‘Mi hija’ or ‘Mi hijita’, my daughter, ‘Mi preciosa’, my precioussssss, ‘Mi reina’, my queen (this one really makes my skin crawl! especially when you get called it by some random guy on the bus), ‘Mami’ or ‘Mamita’, literally mummy but doesn’t really mean that… It takes some getting used to to have people call you their daughter when you've just met them!! But they're a very affectionate people and this is the culture... i've not taken it on yet though! but watch out people!

Oo I’ve waffled on quite enough, there’s soo much more I could say about differences in culture but I hope you’ve found this weeks entry interesting!!! I know I would find your waffle interesting (hint, hint!)…write me about the sublime, the mundane, the downright ridiculous…whatever it is I’d love to know!! Keep me in your lives!!! Please!!!
Ok, desperate plea over!! Wishing you all a joyful 2005, look forward to seeing many of you later on in the year! Oodles of love me (who else?) blahhhhh

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo

2004-12-27T13:09:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to one and all!! i must say today it really doesn't feel like christmas, bright sunshine, blue sky, in the mid twenties!! not normal!! and much to my great joy heard mr jamie cullum on the radio this morning!!! englands not so far away!
i hope you've all had a lovely time with your friends and families! as for me, i have had a good christmas! Here they celebrate on the 24th, and open their presents then, but because Paquitas mum is ill, we celebrated on sat with 'all' the familia (paquita is one of eight!!!, though we were missing one sister and her family), so that made it not seem so strange! On the 24th we had the Remar christmas party - the adolescents dressed up in costumes and Tati made me into a flower, though my leaves kept falling off! It took place in their church 'theatre', over 100 kids + adults!! Full of joy and excitement - Maria later said that this really impressed upon her, that all are so joyful even though they don't have much! Challenge for us with our materialism!! ) (i must say i haven't missed that aspect of christmas in england... the feel is different here) There were games, dancing and presents... though i had to leave before all the presents were handed out coz Maria Augusta (my mentor) had invited Paquita, Armando and me to her's for dinner and we needed to get back for the turkey! Had a good evening with them, completely stuffed, and we had proper english gravy! yummy! and i conversed in spanish with some friends of theirs, not much as i'm not very talkative even in english but i did speak!! i am gaining more confidence day, by day, especially with paquita and armando coz they're very accepting of my mistakes!!!

Christmas day
woke up bright and early, the sun was shining - reckon it got into the twenties, but when the sun goes in it's mighty cold...so it wasn't shorts + vest-top weather but i was in a skirt. I opened my wee prezzies from my parents in anticipation of their phonecall... they rung about 9.30am and i managed to speak to all, i only wish it could've been for longer but dad's mobile ran out of credit! You know it really is true that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'... i was sitting eating breakfast with armando and paquita just thinking how much i love my family, and how i'm so glad they're mine... i'm really looking forward to next christmas when we can spend it together! not felt hugely homesick, praise God, but my eyes did well a couple of times over the weekend when i thought of what people are doing without me! But i am very happy and content here....

so we had lunch at paquitas mum's, some 20+ people + kids!! different christmas lunch to england... only same thing was the turkey... we had mince with bacon, raisins and prunes, rice, mashed potatoe, prune 'gravy', a sort of waldorff salad in lemon jelly, redcurrant jelly in slices...and pudding was coconut cake which i couldn't partake of coz i HATE coconut! after eating our fill, and drinking whisky (! not i! though i did try a sip of the creme... yeukkk!) we sat down to open to presents... i was really surprized to recieve any from the rest of the family!! Paquita and Armando, gave me a vest top and a towel thingy both of which are handmade in ecuador through a co-operative (ethical - nice!) , paquitas mum gave me a traditional christmas decoration, monica (one of the sisters, who got me in touch with the choir) gave me two little ecua dolls in traditional dress, sonia gave me an ecua parrot pot, and as well i recieved 3 fundas (bags) of sweeties... It's tradition here at christmas time to give bags of sweets, chocolates and biscuits - the kids at Remar have received a ridiculous amount!!! their teeth are rotting nicely! (no joke, went to the dentist -for 3 hours!!! uni students!- with some kids this week and it wasn't good news!). so i was really nicely surprised! When we got back to the house, i opened the other presents i had, a couple i'd been sent with and one sent to me here, and Paquita had made me a stocking (!) which i opened with sweets and couple of little bits and pieces... all in all my christmas was very happy! i felt very blessed. Hope you guys did too!

bum-pincher, shoe shiner and large...
intrigued? well i am very sad to have to report this, but the other day i was helping mari-elena open the gates and this guy passed rather close staring at me, i thought nothing of it and ignored him, only then i felt my bum being pinched... needless to say i shouted extremely loudly with utter indignation 'POR FA-VOR', the guy was drunk and didn't take much notice. When i recounted what had happened to mari-elena, she found it utterly hilarious! grrr! Shoe shiner: I went with Tati to buy christmas presents for the kids. Just as we were about to catch a taxi back, she realised she'd forgotten to buy something so left me with all the bags (there were lots!!) at the top of some stairs whilst she went back down. Very quickly a wee shoe-shiner boy came up to me and seeing me with all these bags asked if i'd give him a present... i said no, i'm sorry i can't, they're for the children of Remar, they're not mine to give... but he kept asking, asking, asking and asking, and asking. Then he brought his friend too, and they both kept on asking.... and i kept having to say no and explain and explain that they were for Remar... they didn't take any notice... i was starting to get abit uncomfortable as they were 'kings at pestering' and there was no way i was going to give in so i thought they might just steal them (but they had more manners than that, which impressed me alot)... tati came back and they continued to pester the both of us. It was so sad, because they have nothing and we couldn't give what we had... I felt bad...
Finally 'large'... this is something you will not believe... this week i bought a new zip top coz it get's so cold here and at Remar they get so dirty, and i had to buy a large!!!! and you all know how thin i am... crazy!!!

confession
i am most gutted that here i can not get away from nestle, they monopolise virtually everything! so i have to admit that here i eat their produce! as of yet i haven't bought it myself but i'm sure i'm gonna have to, though i'm trying to avoid it as much as is physically possible! but one thing i haven't had to do yet is eat in McDonalds (though if anyone invites me i can't say no), though i have eaten 'fast food' from chains, i'd prefer not to but in most cases than not it's safer for my belly than a little cafe on the corner!

bananas and behaviour
well, these two things aren't really related but bananas makes too small a paragraph on it's own!! yes bananas - lizzle, if you ever get the chance to come to this part of the world, you will be in banana heaven! here in ecuador there are 6 types of bananas to eat!!! Platanos de seda (our usual), maduros, maqueños, rosados, oritos, platanos verdes.... all are of a different size, 'colour' and taste, and are used to make different things! only one i've not tried is an orito. Behaviour, is in reference to the kids... i've noticed their favourite words are 'mentira' (lie) and 'mentiroso' (liar), it annoys me muchly when they call me a liar, i actually find it quite offensive! They say it whenever they don't believe something you say. But one beautiful thing i've noticed is that when the kids receive biscuits and sweets, and not everyone receives it, they share it out. They very willingly give their sweets to others... it's not the same with other possessions though! Not made cards this week, we had no orders, and Maria says we're gonna have a rest till valentines day.. so i'm not sure what i'll be up to after my holiday (off to the beach)... generally i help alot in the kitchen, and play with the kids. They're so very affectionate, and need a lot of attention, e.g. the other day one girl Johanna (about 11yrs) was just sat on my lap her arms around me, mine around her for about half an hour, extremely comfortable in just sitting there. I'm glad i'm here with them...

!chao! Dios les bendiga, jo xxx

Photos, i hope!

2004-12-27T13:04:00.000-08:00

Had a bit of trouble working this out coz i don't have my own computer, i can't download the programme to upload photos but i think i've worked out a way to get round it, fingers crossed.... this will take alot of room, so don't forget to read the new blog below these... nope doesn't work but if you follow the link below you will be able to see some photos!!!
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/fraggle_jo/album?.dir=/d692

An example of our cards...

Maria Augusta and Bev (bit blurred though, oops!! i'm not the greatest fotographer!)

First day teaching cards, Claudia, Mitzi and me...

The Schools Quito celebration... Second graders piece...

Fourth graders waiting to perform... L-R, Pepito, Richard, Daniella, Juan Andres

Latin Link Christmas in SD...everyone wearing the hats i made!!!

The pudding! My brandy butter!!

Everyone... can you spot me?

enjoy!!!

it's been a while! ... nits and navidad (Christmas)

2004-12-18T11:50:00.000-08:00

well helloooo...
it feels like its been ages since i've written... i wasn't going to be able to write now but we've not gone to tulcan this weekend, it's been posponed until january...

so what's been happening in your lives? guess you're madly rushing round trying to buy christmas presents... definitely not the same craziness here as in england at christmas time, so i'm not sorry to be missing out on that part!... there are the odd adverts on tv but no where near the extent that we have and none of those ridiculous ones aimed at kids, which is refreshing!

guess you'd like to know abit about what i've been up to? last time i wrote i was about to head off to sing in some ¡Viva Quito! concerts celebrating the fundation of quito, and i wasn't sure if my voice would hold out... well it did!!! i did have a few coughing fits in some of the songs though (in the 2nd half when we sang five songs in a row, a medley...), very unprofessional but i couldn't help it!!! really enjoyed the concerts, so glad i was involved in them! though i didn't enjoy wearing my peuce coloured dress with green embroidery... mmmm.... i was truly beautiful! (not!!!) ... one interesting thing i discovered whilst talking to a fellow choirer (in english.. he wanted to practise) was that they don't like it (though probs just the younger generation) that people refer to The States just as America... to him he's American because he's on the continent of South America... so if we're refering to USA we should say USA not America... then i pointed out how us english are almost the opposite - we're 'on' the continent of europe but we in no way do we see ourselves as europeans, we're almost fiercely 'British' or English!!

because i was tied up with choir i didn't really get to do any of the quito celebrations... and on the day itself (6th dec) Bev and i took a road trip to the south of quito (to a valley but still part of quito) where stuart and janeth live (the other couple here long-term with LL in Quito)... which was rather comedy... cause of advice Bev had recieved from people at church, we decided to change the where we caught the bus from... this was a mistake... where we changed it to the buses were rather infrequent... we had to wait an hour for the right coloured bus!!! (which incidentally we only found out about coz we asked 2 policemen at the bus stop!! this long-term missionaries i think take for granted what they know and forget for us it's our first time of doing things and that we need specific instructions!!!) so eventually we got to where we were meant to get off but when Bev had gone before, she went in a car which is a slightly different, and she didn't have a clue where to go next... we wondered around abit lost then i asked a security guard who very helpfully pointed us in the right direction, and we got to their house crossing a wee river on a rickety bridge (which Bev really didn't like!!!)! We ended up arriving a lot later than planned but it was all ok in the end, and we had a lovely lunch and afternoon with their family and friends, and Bev met the woman who runs the project she's gonna get involved in! We had some really comedy rounds of UNO... the ecuadorian way of playing makes for lots of laughs... whenever you make a mistake you have to pick up 4 cards!! and everyone takes great delight in telling you when you've made a mistake!!

last week on friday i went to Santo Domingo, a 3 hour bus ride from Quito bus terminal, for the Latin Link Fiesta de Navidad (Christmas party)... i arrived at about 6pm...waited abit but couldn't see any sign of jules (the strider in SD)... so i tried ringing but couldn't get through - thankfully i had brought with me as an afterthought the other numbers of people in SD... and i got through!!! they were slightly surprized to know that i had arrived...( it turns out that Jules hadn't received the txt maria had sent through about my arrival time, mobiles can be abit temperamental), but they hopped in the car to come and pick me up... in the meantime i found a seat and was chatted to by a very chatty middle-aged venezualan man who also was waiting to be picked up. the majority of Latin Linkers live outside SD on the CLEE (training/retreat centre for pastors) and Orphaids (homes for children orphaned by AIDS) compound, and this is where i stayed... chilled, had something to eat and spent time chatting with Jules, Simon (strider in nicaragua who having just finished had come for a visit) and Clare (long-termer works in Orphaids amongst other things)...

next day up and peeling veg for our christmas dinner by 9am!!! Dave from Ambato and the others from Quito arrived midmorning nad pitched in organising and cooking. Had a great dinner (and everyone wore the christmas hats i had made! though in the ''heat'' of SD the colours ran with sweat so people had coloured foreheads!!) : turkey, gravy (!!!from Eng), brocoli, carrots, roasted potatoes, roasted parsnips (though nothing like yours dad!!!), cauliflower, stuffing (from Eng).... pudding: mince pies (with mincemeat from Eng, doesn't exist here) with brandy butter (!!! made by my fairself - surprise, surprise... you know, i'd never thought i'd have made it in ecuador!!!), choc cake, and gingerbread men - we were thoroughly stuffed!!!!

After washing and tidying up we played 'Dirty Santa'... everyone buys a present for $5 and puts it on the table... everyone is given a number. Number one goes to the table and picks up a present and opens it. Number 2 has 2 choices, they can either take the present of Number one (in which case number 1 chooses another from the table) or they choose one from the table... each present can only move hands 3 times, so if you have it the 3rd time it's yours for keeps. I ended up with a rather attractive fruit clock (i am being sarcastic!!) and some napkins but thankfully i was able to swop them afterwards for some chocs! those these were cocktail flavours (yukk) so then i made another swop with dave for his which were just normal ones!!

Then we had a good olde english sing song with a rather hotch potch mix of instruments... 2 flutes, 2 guitars, 3 recorders, and a keyboard (which i had a wee tinkle of later on which was really great, miss it!)... comedy coz all of us are amateurs but good we enjoyed ourselves which is the main thing! Retired to the house of Sally and Orlando (Brit + Bolivian) for the evening... for more food ( could barely move!) and for several games of Mafia which was funny! And that was our wee english christmas in ecuador.... next day went to jules' church which was interesting coz all the songs we sang we ''english'' ones translated into spanish... afterwards we walked up Bomboli (hill) to go vine-swinging but as it had been raining real heavy in the night it was far too slippery!! boo hooo!! lunch with Jules' ecua-family which was really nice then caught the bus home! i was greeted by a round of applause as i finally managed to open the door on my own!! I've been having real trouble with the lock!! (Joy - i'm sure you understand what i mean...)

oo a little bit about the bus journey... the journey to santo, takes you right up through the mountain, which is very foggy - at points you can barely see 3ft from the window.... i'd hate to drive in that, especially a big bus!!! it was soooooo nice to see greenery, and because of the wet and fog it made me long for a winter's day walk in an english wood with the dew dripping from the trees and that beautifully fresh wet smell... you don't see much greenery in quito... i miss the countryside! and it made me think as we passed all these wee mountainside communities that i'd love to have a wee patch of land of my own someday! big difference of buses here it that when it stops to pick people up, a lot of vendors swarm on with their wares... generally food but people with glasses (eyes not drinks), magazines, pretty much anything to make a few centavos.

now it's time for Remar news (which stands for Rehabilitation Marginal, by the way)... mondays in the kitchen... best job this week was cleaning slightly mouldying chickens (their skin was lookin abit green!)! slimy job! Card-making business is continuing to go well, though this week, and abit of last week, i've lacked workers.... the girls have had to go out selling coz Remar needs money to pay people a sort of christmas bonus that is required by the government of all employers for their employees (which i think is just the school teachers)... but despite that the orders have got finished... enlisted a few of the younger girls to help me. Last Friday the school held a presentation in celebration of the foundation of Quito, and each class prepared alittle piece... also some students from a related secondary school came and did some 'cheerleading', not actually i think it's baton twirling (the american influence) and some traditional dancing. Really enjoyed it, it was really good fun, i was very proud of the kids! i was meant to sing a song but Esteban (the headmaster) never asked me up, so i got away without singing... it was gonna be Come and go with me in spanish... Generally at Remar i'm continuing to build relationships with the 'staff' and kids, though still lack alot in my language... but Maria said yesterday she'd spoken to Tatiana and others, and they were happy with my contribution to life at Remar which was encouraging as it's hard to tell! - oo as you will have gathered from the title, this week i caught my first nits from the kids... grrr.... they've gone but think i'm gonna be paranoid forever now!!

last little bit for this week... weather... been very english this week with lots of rain, particulary yesterday, it was our time of drizzle for most of the day... there are two types of rain here.. either all-day drizzle, or extremely strong outburst in which you get soaked through... i got caught in this second type on monday.. thankfully i had a brollie but my feet got absolutely soaked... and it's took 3 days for my trainers to dry (no central heating)!!

well i think i have truly waffled on for long enough... there is soooo much more one could say but i'll be here for ages and you'll be there for ages!! doubt i'll get to update my blog on sat as it's christmas day... so i shall wish you all now A VERY, VERY, VERY, Happy, Joyfully, Peaceful, Restful Christmas!
christmas eve i've been invited to take part in a fiesta with Remar which should be good fun... not sure about christmas day plans.... but i get 7 days to take off around christmas/new year, so jules, clare, bev and i are gonna go to the beach for new years....bit different!!! God bless you all oodles, love jo xxxx

One month in!

2004-12-04T10:42:00.000-08:00

it's gone pretty quick really! can't believe it!!

this week in Remar has been good, full steam ahead with the card-making business! it's good working with the girls, though it's hard coz i can' really trust them: if i'm not in the room they'll just help themselves to the stuff - i want to be generous but they've got to learn they can't just take what they want when they want it!! had a sad moment when i had to tell them off for taking stuff ( i was quite suprized that i could sound so serious in spanish!)!! i'm really looking forward to really getting to know the girls better and investing in them... ooo sweet moment this week, one of the girls called me 'sister' and gave me a hug... i think they're starting to feel comfortable with me which is good but still can't understand most of what they say... oo comedy moment, one of the girls refered to me as the 'gringita' and i said loudly, 'hey i'm not gringita, i have a name!' which made them laugh lots!!! So it's mostly positive working with the girls, but it's not without it's hairy moments! Monday i helped in the kitchen again, and this time was better, understood more what was going on, felt more useful, and spent time with some different girls. though i spent 2+hours peeling potatoes (i was slow, and they were tiny which makes it very fiddly) and ended up with stained fingers, which still aren't completely clean now!!! Friday morning i was just hanging out with the kids. As its the Fiesta de Quito (celebration of the city's independence) this weekend they didn't have many classes and we had mini party with music, dancing (comedy!!), and games...though every time i sat down, i got bundled by millions of kids (slight exaggeration!!! about 5) It's good fun hanging out with the little kids, though i spend alot of time telling them not to hit each other!!!

coz it's fiesta de quito, i've got my concerts with the choir this weekend... 2 today and 2 tomorrow... i'm hoping my voice is gonna hold out - we had a rehearsal (ensayo) on thurs, and i couldn't sing, i'd nearly lost my voice... and no, it's not from shouting at the kids for being naughty, it's because i've had (and still have) a stinking cold this week! with a lovely chesty cough!!! Paquita thinks it's because the climate is so changeable, that my body's not used to it! (can be really sunny hot in the morning, really cold + wet in the afternoon!) ... this also probably means (along with the traffic fumes) that it'll take me longer to recover than it would in england!! hmmm...i've got a red nose! grrr.... but choir's really good fun, and this week i met a girl whose my age, hopefully we'll become friends! i'm off soon to the teatro (theatre).

in keeping with my normal randomn writing fashion, i shall now jump to something completely different!! or a few different little things.... firstly, a little about the trole, the transport i take everyday. It's kind of similar to the trams we have in sheffield, crossed with the underground in london... and they have a tendency to be extremely squished!! this week had a rather unpleasant bum-bum experience with someone, arghhh! but what i really wanted to say is that some of them play music...and the other i was coming back from a promo sing in one of the centro comerciales (malls), and i experienced a real blast from the past...songs from the 60s that i used to listen to when i was a little (a tape of my dad's)... can't remember they names now but it was weird to hear them!!

now, a little about jobs here, obviously there are the same jobs we have in england... but also a lot of people are employed as security guards, at houses, at businesses, at shops... anywhere and everywhere! the big difference to england is the number of people that work on the streets, of all ages... people with little sweet stalls, newspaper stalls, women with a little BBQ type contraption for cooking platanos (big bananas), people selling DVDs, gloves, fruits, veg... anything... Then at traffic lights you get people selling the mobile phone company top'up cards (dressed in blue or yellow jumpsuits, attractive!!), and you also get entertainers - some are pretty poor, some are good - flamethrowers, clowns, dancers, who take the road when the light is red, then before it changes go by the car windows to get a few centavos for their performance... Oo an 'english' highlight for the week... got my first post!!! janee (my big 'sis') sent me a fab card which is a mini advent calendar... soo cool!!! i'd totally forgotten about advent calendars!!

oo still getting comments and being stared at, this week i had "Hello precious, do you have the time?" (but instead of 'hora' = hour, he said 'horita', -ita is added to things alot, it kind of makes words more cute, well, thats the only way i can explain it..) I was talking to Janeth, an ecuadorian latin linker about it, and she said i should like it that people make comments! i don't like people making comments in england let alone here!! though i have noticed, it's not just people like me, i've noticed men really obviously checking out ecuadorian women ... so now i reckon it's not soo much that i'm gringa, but it's the machismo culture!!! but grrr anyway!!

not sure when i'll next write, coz i'm away next weekend - i'm taking a trip to Santo Domingo for our Latin Link 'christmas day' - it's gonna be alot hotter there, so i might actually get to wear my shorts, and not wear a jumper!!! looking forward to it, my first time outside of quito!!!
it's time i was going, but i hope that you're all well! don't forget to keep in touch with life were you are!! oodles of love xx

p.s. if you're squimish don't read this next bit...
just a wee update on my BCG!! just had to let you know (especially stacey!! hee hee!!) that it stopped pusing awhile ago, and now there's even no scab... so it's healing nicely! yeay! though people keep noticing it, and asking what it is with really worried faces!!! xxx

and now I'm back (in Remar)

2004-11-27T11:12:00.000-08:00

Hellooooooooo
so yes, i'm back in Remar... Mon I went in but left at 12, tuesday i went in and left at 3... the troubles tend only to be in the afternoon now - when i left on thursday just after 3, i literally had to walk right through a load of students branishing sticks and stones (they looked soooo young!!!), they managed to stop a bus, i'm not sure what their intention was, just being generally disorderly i think!! needless to say when i came across them, my heart skipped a beat, but they weren't interested in me and i just walked right on by - one guy actually had let his stone slip and was scrablling around near my feet trying to pick it up in the chaos as i passed!! Lost souls really, it all seemed abit pointless what they were doing! Told Bev about it yesterday and she was very upset to have missed it!!! She's left Remar, through no fault of her own and is looking for a placement elsewhere with a new mentor... which is a real shame, i was really looking forward to working with her!! but we'll still see each other and will have a laugh when we do!

so this week in Remar... to be honest Mon was rubbish!!! I felt rubbish!!! Communicating felt so hard, i didn't seem to understand much - i was in helping in the kitchen... the work itself was fine - washing up, sweeping, cleaning, throwing out rotten veg (they get it all donated, so the good comes with the bad - some of it was really mingin!!! furry! and squishy!! urghhh!! hee hee...), got to know the names of some of the slighter older girls but communicating was hard!!... then from tues to fri i've pretty much been singlehandedly overseeing the card-making.... Maria came on tuesday and started it off with me and Bev - the girls really took to it, they picked it up really quickly and were really enthusiastic about it...I've taken some photos and when i've worked out how to get them on a disc (and getting the gutts to speak it all in spanish in a photo store), and then onto this blog, you'll be able to see the first morning!! 6 girls were with us on tues, though yesterday i just had 4. We finally managed to complete the order that people made at the 'church lunch' i went to last saturday, so hopefully the customers will be pleased with their purchases on sunday... they're not perfect but they're really good!

It's really good working with the older girls (adolesents... they actually live in La casa de Madres - Mums house), though i miss working with the littler ones! Find it quite frustrating though with my language, i can tell them what to do (just!) but having conversations, and trying to understand theirs is alot harder!!! And keeping them motivated and upbeat, encouraging them, is hard too, though by far the worst thing is telling them they've done it wrong! I probably sound really harsh with my limited spanish!!

Thursday afternoon was completely mental!!! I had the older girls just about to start on a new card, and Titiana wanted me to teach some of the younger girls to make cards too - it started off just about ok.. until more of the older kids came and wanted to learn, and i needed to go and get my id card (for which i ended up having to wait for and hour and a quarter!!!) - since i have only one mouth, 2 eyes and 2 hands - it was impossible to give the attention needed to all (the younger girls specially needed more encouragement and supervision!) - needless to say i felt fair exhausted when i left!!!

I think my main role here in a sense is pastoral, for example, the other day one of the older girls i'm workin with was looking really upset, so i just sat down beside her on the grass and asked what was up - although i couldn't understand all that she said, i could give her a hug, and could just be there, which she appreciated. This is where the language is so frustrating!!! Do you remember i hoped that i would be able to work alongside a psychologist? well there is one here.... but i've realised that i couldn't actually do anything because i don't understand what the kids are saying - this week there was a girl from the university who is a psych student, Esteban (the headmaster of the school) introduced her to the girls whilst we were making cards, and one said i need to talk to a psychologist... so the girl said she could talk with her - to be honest i was jealous!!! - i want to be able to do that - but i lack in language, and in training! but i know i'm here for a reason, so i'll just do what i can!!

other stuff - spent mon afternoon making christmas cookies with Paquita, which was good fun! they're having a family cantata (christmas singsong) and the cookies are presents for everyone there (yesterday paquita and armando were packaging them up in little baskets with sweeties with coloured tissue paper and cellophane, 30 in all) - unfortunately i can't go coz i've got one of my concerts!! sniff sniff! but there's another one a little later with their friends that i can go to! thinking of the pastry theme, Bev, Dave (another strider, he's been here a year already and is now based in ambato- 3hrs south of quito.. i think) and i went for a coffee after our team meeting, i had the most delicious chocolate cookie, it just melted in my mouth...umm, umm, umm, um, um!!! and a delic hot choc, slightly fudgy!!! yummy!!! had some terrific thunderstorms this week, got woken up at 4,30am the other day with a realy bad one! but generally they're in the afternoons! the other day i got caught out, we'd had several days of really great weather, no rain, so i didn't take my brolly!! luckily i don't live too far from the trole stop (like 2mins) but i got soaked!!! when it rains, it REALLY rains!!! well it's about time i get to replying to some emails!! hope you find my news interesting, don't forgot to let me know yours!!! oo this week think i'm singing a song in the school christmas 'show'... hmmm... gonna try and sing 'come and go with me' in spanish acapella!!! hmmm.... :)
oodles of love until next time! xxx

a bit of culture

2004-11-20T11:51:00.000-08:00

hello everyone!!

first let me just say thanx so much for all your emails... i'm doing my best to reply to you all coz i value you all a lot!! i'm sorry that when i do reply my emails are soo short, it's impossible to write loads to each of you!! hope you understand!!

so this week... hmmm... not been to Remar once! not been in for over a week now and really don't know if i'll be able to go in on monday! although i've not found Remar easy (knowing what am i actually meant to be doing) i'd prefer to be there than not, as that's what i'm here for!!!! The problem is that the students in the university are demonstrating against the goverment, there are people vehemently for the president and people vehemently against... when students demonstrate it involves rock throwing at police and the police retaliating with tear gas, so it's not very safe to be there at the mo! it's disappointing but there's nowt Bev and i can do except pray! for abit more info on the political situ, check out these links from the dear old Beeb:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1212882.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4001367.stm

so as i haven't much news from Remar, i thought i'd tell you lots of little random bits about life here...

Seeing TV being made - mon to thursday bev and i spent with Maria working on more designs for the card making business (hopefully we start 'teaching' the girls on tues) in her office at Asomavision. Asomavision is a Christian TV station, and Maria and her hubby are the head techincal engineering people. So whilst we were there this week we got to listen in on some programmes being recorded - one seemed abit like an Ecuadorian version of Richard and Judy!! They have alsorts of programmes, not all made by them - some are taken from other countries - whilst watching the other day they had an advice session with some counsellors, they also do cooking programmes, make-up, fashion, kids stuff, womens programmes, alsorts! though i've not actually seen any of it on the TV yet... i tend to watch 'trashy' novelas (soaps)...

Food - food has been fine so far... for those of you that know what my stomach's like (nuff said!!) it's been a relief to find out they don't do spicy food here like the mexicans!!! Well they do do it, but you can chose to put the chilli sauce on!! My Ecua-mum is a very good cook... generally in the evening we have homemade soup of various kinds (last night, bit o meat with chocra - bit like our sweetcorn only less sweet, and other veg) which sometimes is eaten with canguil (popcorn - obviously the un-toffeed variety). this is followed by meat of some sort with rice (mostly) or potatoes with menestra (lentil stew) or other veg. what is really great here is the FRESHLY made fruit juices (with many fruits you've never seen before in your life!) which have no artifical additives, it's just the fruit pulp, water and some sugar (so prob not that good for your teeth - oo thinking of teeth, they drink alot of fizzy drinks here!!) Paquita makes them not daily but very often - today we've had strawberry (m m mmmm). I think my favourite so far was Badea, which to me tastes abit like passionfruit/guava. I really wish fruit was as cheap here as in england, i'd love to make my own juices!!

generally we eat out for lunch - this week whilst at Asoma, we've eaten at the nearest place which is a chinese! different taste to english chinese or to what i cool but it's really good value for money, though i can NEVER eat all they give me... yesterday i had deliciously fried chicken, rice, chips, wee salad and fruit juice for $3, about 1.50!!!! the other day we had a bit of orientation in the old part of town and got lunch for $1.25!!! about 70p!! crazy!! fried chicken places are very popular here, as i remember they were in Guatemala, and joey there are Camperos here (remember my 'green' incident!)... lots of places too that sell the traditional soup, then meat, menestra and rice, as well as McDs (which i've steered clear of, and shan't eat!! though i have to eat nestle!!! arghh, so hard!!), pizza hut and KFC, and almost everything whenever you are comes with 'cola' (fizz).

Weather - the highest it's been is 27 oC and the lowest (that i've noticed) 9 oC - i can't believe there's been snow in sheffield and elsewhere in england this week!! i can't imagine it!! It's generally in the early 20's, though there's usually a thunder storm in the afternoon and then it can get really quite cold! But on the whole this temp suits me just fine! It's generally sunny but also prone to being overcast so i have to put on my sun-tan lotion, don't want to get burnt - i'd stand out even more then!!!

Church - only been to one church, that's the one my ecua-parents go to, and also my mentor... Bev's family are catholic so she doesn't go to church with them, but has found a pentecostal stylee like she's used to... so i've been going to Siloe, its evangelical erring more to the baptist side - it's very different to what i'm used to - stopping between each of the songs for a little word or expounding of the lyrics, very different style too, not like our old gareth or paul at stthom's... before the service, there's a bible study class, one for each of the different groups in the church - i went to the jovenes one for the first time last sunday ('youth' - ages ranging from 16 up to 30+ i think) which was good, i managed to follow it better than the talk in the service - because people can butt in a say what they think, say what they understand, which means it's easier to maintain concerntration than when it's one guy!! I think i'm gonna stick with it and get to know the people there...

Family culture- one thing i've learnt is the importance of family here - generally families live close together, and are big (Paquita one of 8, though my generation the families are smaller). Maria said she didn't know how an ecuadorian would cope if they didn't have a family. Families are the key, ecuadorians tend to have fewer friends than we have in england because they are so much closer to their families - infact each sat or sun, most 'children' will return to visit their parents for the afternoon/evening.

so i think that's about it for now, no other news, the choir is going well, starting to make 'friends' with some of my fellow choir members, the songs are going well i think but the pronunication of words can be a prob sometimes!! haven't got the hang of the national anthem yet though (it's very hard when we just sing it through once in a week, coz obviously 'everyone' esle knows it!!!)... hope you're all well, keep in touch with news from old blighty or the part of the world you're in! love jo xxx

p.s. ooo bro, i've done what you said and bought myself a less gringo bag (2 squid- traditional sort of bag, think Toybox stuff)!!! i also bought a very exciting rainbowry jumpery thing for 5 squid. xx

oops! I hadn't finished!

2004-11-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

Oops, published it by accident, still have more to say!!!
So this week with the kids... it's been good but have got frustrated with not being able to understand what they say and not being able to say what i want. they're great kids, really affectionate but also really aggressive (fighting a lot),i hope that when my spanish is better i'll be able to help them treat each other better! Spent my mornings with the second graders (about 8years old), helping them with their work. We've been doing the syllables ma, me, mi, mo, mu, and abit of numeracy. I think they need a lot of encouragment, and they find it really hard to concerntrate, and it seems to me (though i can't realy remember what i did at their age) that what they do is rather simple. but then i remember that these kids haven't had the opportunities like you or i, they've come from awful situations, so it's not surprizing they find studying difficult! little Israel, bless him, was nearly falling asleep!

my afternoons are unstructured, i'm meant to help with homework but as it usually rains in the afternoons, the kids can't be outside, so everyone is in the dining room which means it's very hard for those with homework to concerntrate on it!! Then i usually end up sitting there, kids being mental all around me! playing with them (which usually involves them draping themselves off you, playing with your hair) and sorting out arguments! (well with my limited spanish i can't really sort them out but just tell them to stop it!) Because it involves a lot of initiative taking and as i'm not very confident with speaking, i find the afternoons more difficult!!

as of this week we're having bible club twice, tuesdays for 4th/5th graders, thursdays for 2nd/3rd graders... maria hopes that Bev and I will run the tuesday one...she actually asked if i could do it next week but i declined!! though i think she'll have me doing it the week after!! aaahhhh!!! my spanish isn't that good, i'm so slow at speaking, but as she said, sometimes we need something like that to force us to take the next step! scary!!
one cool moment was when after bible class on thursday, Maribel (in my 2nd grader class) asked me to tell her stories about Jesus, the only problem was, a) i'm not that good at telling stories,and b) and couldn't think of anything in spanish, so ended up just singing a song we'd sung that day!

oo yeah the card'making business... it's an idea of Maria's... to give the older girls a skill and help them to earn some money... we spent wednesday trying to come up with design ideas but ended up thoroughly dejected and frustrated and downhearted! but yesterday as i couldn't go to Remar, i met up with Maria and we had another go... and this time it was really good, i really enjoyed it.. we think we've come up with some sellable designs using various techniques which we're going to teach the girls... i hope that one day they'll be able to come up with the designs themselves! so its really exciting!!

other randomn stuff to tell you.... Bev and i have come up with a great game that we play as we walk around, it's called 'Spot the Gringo' (Gringo being the name for americans, english etc), it provides us with quite abit of amusement!!! hee hee... one thing i hate it that "everyone" stares at me, with my whiter than white skin, and some make lude comments - sometimes i wish i could change my skin/hair colour and fit in. Bev's ok coz she's black and there are plenty of black ecuadorians - she says it's only when she opens her mouth that people realise she's gringo!!! n'vr mind, most people are lovely!!

oo big news, i've joined a choir!!! Quito celebrates it's independence at the beginning of december, and as part of the celebrations there's a concert, and i've mangaged to get myself in the choir!! very exciting!! it can be hard trying to sing in spanish, and i'm learning the songs after everyone else, i've had two rehearsals so far, but i've really enjoyed them! best be off, keep well one and all, hope you enjoy my garbled writings! xxx

Tarjetas, tear gas and tamales!

2004-11-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

well, what a week!! only spent 2 and half days at remar! let me explain....
I didn't go in on wednesday coz with Maria (my mentor) Beverley and I are trying to develop a card-making business for the older girls... to give them a skill...more about that later... Thursday i went in but had to leave at lunchtime.... you see whenever there is political unrest, the students get out and demonstrate, throwing rocks and the like, the police use tear gas to subdue them - don't worry i wasn't involved in any demonstrating!! - Remar is right next door to the University, therefore the wind blows the gas our way! There have just elections here and the students don't like the results hence the demonstrating... somewhere between 12 and 12.30pm, i was with the ickle kids (5/6years - can't understand a word they say!!) and there were just going outside to play, i was standing by the door and suddenly my eyes and throat started hurting and ,my eyes watering - the teacher hurriedly called the kids in doors, and we recovered! But we had to keep all the kids indoors.. Maria rung alittle later and said that Bev and I had to leave after lunch and for me not to come back that day or friday!!! Bev was really funny as we walked down to catch a trolle, we looked down the street and could see lots of students hurling rocks, there was no traffic (VERY UNUSUALL!!!!), Bev wanted to go for a closer look, crazy woman!! We walked with our jumpers over our noses out of the area, eyes streaming!! This would never happen in England!! Mental! Quite exciting though.

I've arrived!!

2004-11-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

well i've arrived! I've been here for 5 days now, haven't done much so as to allow my body to acclaimatise to the altitude, i've only had a wee bit of dizziness. Since i've had to rest and not do too much, I only managed to get to the internet yesterday but that access was very slow and i couldn't get onto this but i've found somewhere today at a centro comercial (big american style shopping mall). ooo enough waffling about the boring stuff!

so far ecuador has been fab (today been up to 27oC, lowest 9oC) but to be honest i've felt quite timid and shy and lacking in confidence, but i'm gradually gaining that as i have a go! yesterday i went to my project for the first time and met up with Beverley (the other Strider). I went to help Maria Augusta (my mentor) with a bible class for the second/third graders (there's a school on site) and generally to see what goes on...

Remar is actually a set of houses around Quito, and there is also one is Guayaguil and some place else. There are five houses in Quito: the one i'm at for young girls, one for boys, one for rehab of alcoholics and drug addicts, one for young mums, and another for older girls. The bible class was great fun, they learnt about Joseph, we sung some songs (including a spanish version of Allelu allelu allelu allelujah praise ye the lord!! with the ups and downs! comedy!) The children are very friendly, and very affectionate, i'd hardly been there 20 mins and girls were hugging me and leaning on me! I´m now known as 'tia joanna' (auntie).

The home is run by Titiana and Diego a Colombian couple, i've only met Titiana, she's just amazing and i really look forward to working with her! Remar is a bustling hive of activity, the young mums are there working in 2 rooms making stuff to sell, theres a kindergarten, and a school, which means kids are everywhere! (about 80 in the school, which is mixture of children from the homes and the local area. The younger children go to school in the morning, and the older kids go out to school in the afternoon). So, i was shown around the complex (there's a nice sized area for the kids to play in! with trees and things, i'll try to get some photos at some point!), was introduced to lots of people whose names i can't remember, then i ended up in the second grader class helping them sew round the outline of a dinosaur on a piece of paper! Very comedy considering i didn't know the exact spanish but i got by and even managed to tell off some kids for being naughty! I think i'm going to be teaching that class some english, though i'm not quite sure of the details!!

So how is my communication, I bet your wondering! well, it's going ok. I can understand alot (though i think i give off an aura of understanding more than i do coz i follow body language etc!) but can't remember or reproduce it easily - it takes me ages (slight exaggeration) to put together what i want to say, but i know this will come with time. my mentor thinks i probably don't need lessons, so i'm going see how my first week goes at Remar and then reassess the situation which is quite exciting... my major problem is just having the confidence to speak, and to get it wrong!! (which i frequently do!!!) I will begin properly at Remar on Monday, working 9-5 mon-thurs, with half day fridays. I don't know exactly yet what I'll be doing but something and probably a little of everything!!!

so things are feeling good now. It's been soooo good to be able to go out and do stuff today with Beverly coz i have been abit anxious to go on my own.... 'everyone' stares at me which is abit unnerving but i guess i'll get used to it (?)... oo i forgot to tell you where i'm staying... i'm staying with the sister of my mentor and her husband, Paquita and Armando, and they're really really lovely!!! I live on the third floor in a building very near a 'trolle' stop (it's about a 15 minute trolle, a.k.a tram, ride from Remar)
oo there's soo much more i could say but this is quite long enough for now!! hope this all makes sense!!, i'm sure you'll get used to my writing style!!! :)

Fantabulous Sheffield + Visa Fiasco

2004-10-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

Well I have 3 full days left in dear old blighty!! Finished college on the 23rd and headed up to Sheffield to say my goodbyes! I had a fantastic weekend. My party on Friday went well, various people popped in and out, it was a chilled affair which was perfect for me! Saturday night Tim (old cell leader) had a party at his, so another late night but great to spend time with old chums, I’m really gonna miss people!!! Sunday went to Crookes in the morning, then to Teaching Service and my cluster in the evening…which was finished off by a quick bit of Salsa at Sheffield union with my old housemate! Sunday night was the first time in a while that I actually felt dead excited about going – it feels such a privilege and an honour! Overall the weekend was such a blessing, really encouraging and made me feel even more strongly that I want to go back to Shef!

Monday was a bit of a trial… slightly comedy when you look back on it… up at 6am rather bleary eyed, Emmie let me out of the house (very stiff lock!!) and I went off into the dark and wet morning! Got to the Ecuadorian Embassy about 10.30, waited a bit then realised I needed to announce my presence and not just wait in a queue!! Doh! (I must say in my defence that there were no signs to explain the process). At this point Roz, one of my bestedest chums from Shef turned up (she’s in London doing an internship with SPEAK) and we nattered the time away till the lady called me… Then a ‘bombshell fell’… she couldn’t give me my visa – I was incredulous and started praying!

Basically there’s a new Consul who is rather more particular than the old one and he wanted evidence from the Ecuadorian Foreign Office that Latin Link and their legal rep were bonafide! I was very shocked at the refusal and ended up having an emotional outburst just outside to a rather bemused Roz! (due more to over-tiredness than anything else I reckon!) The guard tried to be sympathetic but succeeded in offending me (cross-cultural miscommunication maybe?) so I left! Got a grip and rung Sarah in the Latin Link office. She was fab and got on the case right away… so now I shall be heading to London (tomorrow) to pick up my visa – God is in control, He wants me there, He’s gonna get me there! Just a wee hiccup, I’m sure more of those are to be expected!

Otherwise this week is going well….packing is slowly getting done…might need an elephant to sit on my case though!?! …saying goodbyes to people and generally chilling out! ¿Qué sucederá en Ecuador en tiempo de cuatro días? – that’s the game I’m playing, what will I be doing this time next week ?

My first blog!!

2004-10-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

wow! this is exciting! so here is the beginning of the rest of my life blogged here for all to see!

this time in three weeks i will be in fair Quito - haven't a clue what i will have done! probably just rested lots as i get used to being up SOOOO high (9,350 ft. above sea level). few things to get sorted before i go, not least my packing!!! at this moment in time i've got 2 jabs to go and a visa to get - but that's all looking like it's going to go tickety boo! i think it likely i'll have an attack of the nerves the last week i'm at home but at the mo i'm feeling ok about it all! but before then i've got just under 2 weeks left at Redcliffe College - it's gone sooo quickly!
later x