Friday 2/13

Since we didn’t have physiology we got to sleep in a little.

After culture class I chilled in the church office to catch some internet time before Spanish.

After Spanish we all went out to pizza and then hung out at Leigh’s house and ate cookies and watched a movie.

Saturday 2/14

Happy Valentine’s Day! I got a card and flowers from my mom and a rose from Maria de Lourdes.

In the morning we did some touristy things and went shopping as a group. My shopping ventures were an utter failure, but I did get to try roasted pork skin, which I found disgusting. It’s only slightly gross in concept, but I was not a fan of the texture. It was like chomping on a salty hard candy.

Back at “hogar dulce hogar” (as Marcela calls it,) we watched some movies and I did some homework before heading over to the other side of the world for a meeting at Maria’s house.

We talked about our experiences so far and how we were doing. Then we ate pizza and watched a movie.

Sunday 2/15

We went to the 11:00 service, which I really liked, then we picked up Chinese, which I loved.

After that immediately we hopped in the car for a 3 ½ hour excursion to visit the relatives. Dios mio. The highlights included:

Meeting a very cute but muddy dog that got me nastified.

Walking through a field while discussing popular music and breaking one of my three pairs of shoes.

Making taffy by pouring boiled sugar on a wet rock and sprinkling it with anise seeds then peeling it off an pulling it. Don’t mind the grass and ants . . .

At night I helped in the nursery at church, which was utter chaos but thoroughly enjoyable. I enraptured them by becoming el oso de cosquillas (the tickle bear).

My mom sent me to bed with a hot water bottle for my back.

Monday 2/16

After a shortened physiology class I went home and chillaxed for a while.

In the afternoon at La Fundaccion I was in optometry, where we worked with public health officials screening for cateracts. One old guy said his vision was so good because he was in the presence of such beautiful young ladies.

In the evening I played computer games with Gabby. Even against a 14-year-old I’m pathetic.

Tuesday 2/17

During physiology I drew a rather life-like depiction of Prof. Toral. Serves him right for letting a computer program teach us for 2 hours.

La Fundaccion: Today the optometrist was in, so he explained the patients’ conditions and the machinery to us. We saw patients with cateracts, which apparently are pretty common here, “tergios”, which are membranous growths, and glaucoma.

After the doc left, we chatted with his assistant for a while, who was very nice and gave us free eye exams upon request.

Attack #2 of water balloons. Luckily, pegging folks from cars is usually unsuccessful. Otherwise I would’ve taken it in the head.

Spanish today was awesome, mostly because she taught what we had questions on (which meant I actually cared about the material). We also translated a dirty love song. During recess we were playing with tiny rocks and some man threw a hissy fit that we were going to hit his car.

I had a nice chat with our bus driver and got to hang with the fam a bit before realizing a personal vendetta against a game of spider solitaire.

The one bar of wireless I pick up here that won’t let me connect to the internet is maddening.

Wedn esday 2/18

Best day in optometry EVER. This poor guy had been in the Foundation for about an hour before the doc arrived, and when he came in he explained that he had been assaulted on Friday and stabbed in the eye. Do some math between when he got stabbed and when he came in. It was really grossie josie. It had gotten infected. There was another sad case with a disabled man whose optic nerve had been damaged in an accident. There was nothing we could do for him. Cateracts, cateracts, and more cateracts.

Thursday 2/19

I love it when profs are late. Only an hour of physiology. Other than that, nothing terribly extraordinary happened. I survived another water balloon attack.

I think I need to be more careful of what I say . . . My parents were telling my sis that she needs to study more. I voiced an opinion to the contrary—she just needs to marry well. To this assertion, my parents posed the question of what I’d do if I didn’t marry well. I said I’d dance in a club. That went over smashingly : )

Friday 2/20

B-day!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up to a huge flower by my breakfast, which set the mood nicely for the day. After a field trip to a cultural museum, I got to get online a bit before Spanish.

Spanish was awesome. We worked for about 1 hour, then took a half hour recess. Then we sort of worked for 15 min, followed by asking random slang questions and playing games.

This little old Spanish teacher, Alba, brought up that I needed 20 spankings with a belt, which were duly delivered in plain view of the street.

Maria de Lourdes, the program director, gave me a gorgeous flower arrangement, and everyone came home with me to par-tay.

We hung out for a bit, piling all the girls on my bed. Then we had sandwiches and this amazing meringue-y-creamy-strawberry-kiwis-y cake. After that we busted out the music and did the Macarena followed by a viewing of the highly hysterical Baby Mamma.

Once all the guests left, my mom came down and I was doing the dishes with her and my sister when all war broke out. It started with Isa chucking a bucket of water at her mom. The water started flying, all inside of course, and by the end the kitchen, dining room, living room, and ourselves were soaked. I think that was my favorite part of the whole day.

Saturday 2/21

Lazy lazy day. Woke up late and after breakfast went to the market with mom and littlest sis. After that we had a family bread-making thing, which was really fun. Then Gabby and I proceeded to rifle through their movie collection until we had amassed a considerable pile that I needed to see. We made a small dent by watching 2. As a family we played the backyard version of Ecuavolley, which is basically volleyball played by partially throwing a ball with the equivalent softness of a soccer ball.

Gabby and I had a spider solitaire-off. I kicked boo-tay.

Sunday 2/22

Family fun day. We spent about 8 hours with relatives, which was mostly pointless chatter, boredom, and kissing a dozen more strangers. The highlight was playing carnival, meaning a giant water/shaving cream fight outside.

We played a little Ecuavolley, (basically throwing a soccer ball at each other,) and I jammed my finger but redeemed myself with my mad soccer skills.

I also got called guapisima, and he was really really cute. I wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was for this sort of event, especially since he was a relative—not to mention four years old.

The festivities were cut a bit short since one of the relative’s house got robbed. They’re now minus one pc and some jewelry.

Monday 2/23

Time to meet the other side of the family, which I found is my favorite. We played carnival some more and had a big lunch of meat chunks and rice. We played a lot of cards and watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The relatives asked me a lot of questions and I got to be the funny gringa.

I introduced them to the concept of peanut butter and banana, which I’m not sure they were ready for.

Tuesday 2/24

Today we recouped from Carnival. I alternately studied, watched movies, and polished my spider solitaire skills. I also explored my new favorite place—a really sweet park. It’s the stuff of movies, with kids at soccer practice, old people stretching on the jungle gym, and a middle aged man running laps in short shorts. It’s absolutely massive, and I love it.

Wednesday 2/25

Day one in General medicine, and overall it was good. We saw lame stuff like ear infections, fever, diabetes, and more interesting things, like a guy who was peeing black. We got a little practice with Bp as well.

At night we went to a birthday party for a kid from Taylor who’s not with our group but will be living with a family here for 3 mon, Luke Owlsley. There was food, silliness, and dancing. It was rather awkward but pretty fun to pretend like we knew how to salsa and meringue. Some of our new Ecuadorian friends tried to help us out.

Thursday 2/26

So, when my mom said she was tired and I cracked a joke about communal napping . . . let’s just say she took it less lightly than I’d anticipated. I was rather dismayed when I woke up half an hour later than I’d intended in bed with my mom and littler sister snoozing beside me.

Is it sad that the highlight of my day was when Jenny swallowed her pen cap in Spanish class? Perhaps.

I am hopelessly addicted to spider solitaire, and thusly I’ve decided to give it up for lent.

Ok, people, I apologize for the weird formatting script and lack of "pzazz" in my blog. I'll work on it. It really takes the fun out of blogging if no one comments! It makes me feel like a middle-aged woman on a public bus muttering about darning socks or something, cause if I'm gettin' no feedback, the tedious work of posting becomes rather unappealing. That is all : )

More to come on Fri . . .

Monday 2/9

· The first day of classes went pretty smoothly (probably because it was all review). After class we went downtown to do some shopping, then I took the bus home all by my lonesome. After a little backtracking, I finally got there.

· After lunch we went to La Fundación, a mini-hospital ministry. This week I’m in surgery, but today I was relegated to sorting gauze. Since we were working in the emergency room, we got to see a guy’s lower abdominal hernias drained of 20 mL of blood, which was pretty cool. We also watched a little old lady with diabetes get her stomach palpitated. At least I got to take her blood pressure.Hopefully tomorrow we’ll see some blood and guts.

· After a brief meeting at the church to choose our ministries, we went home. I might get to teach a taekwondo class, which has me pumped!

· I spent some time talking with my family, then we had family devotions. Guess whose turn it was . . . Yeah, reading a whole chapter of Proverbs aloud in Spanish is every bit as difficult as it appears.

Tuesday 2/10

· Another day of physiology and La Fundación. Alas, no blood and guts. Today at the clinic we did the very important work of rolling cotton balls. I hope they don’t use those in any way shape or form in which they actually touch human flesh, because I definitely made them with bus hands.

· On the way home I affirmed my great talent of getting “un-lost”. My delayed arrival had my mom worried for her lil’ white girl. I recommended that next time she just roam the streets screaming, “DONDE ESTÁ MI GRINGA?!?” Over lunch I enraptured Mama Velez with the concept of fudge. In the afternoon we had 3 hours of Spanish class, which I enjoyed for the most part, but now I’ll never be able to keep up with my personal dictionary.

· Tonight we went to a service at church run by the youth. I was really digging all the music, especially Hillsong. Let me tell you, nothing makes a gringa feel welcome like staring at her as if she were a grotesque coat rack (which is how I felt, although, I kind of like being able to literally “look down” on everyone).

Wednesday 2/11

· Cultural tidbits:

o the stages of Ecuadorian dating are as follows:

§ Enamorados (any stage of love until she has a ring on her finger. Includes dating).

§ Novios (engaged)

§ Casado (married

o When gesturing someone’s height, put your hand palm out, not down. Down is for animals.

o Calling someone skinny or a fatty is acceptable.

· After all of us completed our third day of training for the speed writing Olympics, (i.e. physiology class,) our prof consented to copy his power points for us. Hallelujah.

· After class I took the bus by myself to La Fundación, which meant I went into intensive training for getting unlost. I swear, I was watching every stop, looking for mine, but somehow I missed it. By the time I realized this, I didn’t want to de-bus, because I’d have to walk a whole bunch. I figured the bus ran a route, so I’d just ride it until we came around to my stop again. Yeah, that’s didn’t work out so well when the bus came to a stop at the top of a small mountain and the bus driver told me to get off of his bus. The astute driver inferred from my confused and forlorn expression that I was lost, and graciously allowed me to re-bus. He also told me when to get off this time around. No worries; I was only an hour late, which I wouldn’t have minded, except for what my partner, Leigh, told me. Apparently we were supposed to watch a brain surgery, but I wasn’t there and she couldn’t stomach it. She was ready to pass out because of what she’d see. I wanted to pass out because of what I’d missed.

· We spent the afternoon rolling pads of gauze and cleaning surgical tools. Even though I put forth my best effort, somehow I don’t feel like something I washed in a normal sink with detergent, that was touched by unwashed hands, and set on a table should be put in someone’s flesh. Nevertheless, we wrapped the kits up and they got the “sterile” stamp of approval. Remind me not to require surgery on this trip . . .

· Yesterday I asked around to see when the next surgeries were, and the docs said I could stay late today, which I did, all by my lonesome.

· SO- WORTH- IT.

· I sat in on a brain surgery. Like, I was standing next to the patient, snapping pics and taking video. They drilled into her skull and made an incision in her abdomen, just under the ribs. They took a thin metal pipe and shoved it under her ribs, through which they fed a small, hollow tube. The tube was fed, length by length, up her neck, around to the back of her head where it could alleviate pressure. Fluid ran through the tube from her skull to the peritoneum. Throughout this process, I was aided in understanding and optimum camera angles by my new friend, Luis (no, I did not make this name up). He’s a fourth year med student, and he did some of the menial tasks in surgery, such as adjusting the light and fetching gauze. I played the very important role of identifying the labels on the gauze they were considering using. Without my help they would have never known how to distinguish the type from the company of origin. (yes, they did actually pause in surgery to have me read the gauze package).

· Who knew surgeons really do make off- color jokes and talk about lunch during surgery? One of them had his cell in there and one of the assistants was taking calls for him.

· I have not only perfected the art of getting “unlost”, I shaved some minutes off of my time. On the plus side, I’ve seen a lot of the city where I otherwise would have no reason to be there.

· When I finally got home, we went on a family walk with Bruno down by the river, where we passed a trio of midgets, which gave me the giggles. Mama Marcela reminisced of her childhood, in which she enjoyed Little House on the Prairie, Lassie, and Seventh Heaven. Thankfully she wasn’t crushed when I broke it to her that the real Lassie was replaced several times, and she even gave me a cute lil’ necklace with sunflower beads. I must be the best gringa she’s ever had!

Thursday 2/12

· While we were waiting for the bus after physiology class, I was violated. It was illegal; it was dirty, and I’ll never be the same. You see, I was personally assaulted- with water balloons. This car full of guys drove past with them, and I got nailed. My whole front was soaked (pre-Carnival celebrations are illegal, fyi). I found it all pretty funny, until I was freezing, (or as they say, achachi,) for 3 hours. After a short devotional, “Thursdays with Gustavo”, at the church I took the bus home. It took so freaking long that I basically got home, ate, then went back to the bus stop. This is all over the course of 3 hours.

· Today I skipped un-lost practice in favor of actually getting to where I’m going, and I did it all by my lonesome. Go me.

· After 3 hours of Spanish class in the afternoon, I’m ready for my brain to go on autopilot. I’ve found that I’m super ok with chatting it up with whatever Ecuadorian I happen to be near, i.e. tonight it was our van driver, but I’m still on the quiet side with the gringos. Go figure.

· Today I saw a kid juggling machetes in the street. I think that and Carnival are customs that we should adopt.

Week 1

First of all, snail mail may be iffy, but FedEx definitely works here.
Mailing address:
Iglesia Verbo
Brittany Hoffman
Av. 10 de Agosto 1-196 y
Lorenzo Piedra
Cuenca, Ecuador
Sudamérica

Monday 2/2
· Plane delayed. Long, awkward waiting
· Flight to Houston on tiniest plane known to man.
· Long flight to Quito. Ate bad food and ignored a lame movie.
· Got through customs by midnight.
· Had a snack at a café and slept in a hostel.

Tuesday 2/3
· Long day of touring. Visited monuments and an ecological preserve with a caldera. Shopping in the market.
· Finally got internet perched at the top of the stairs.
· Lunch was guinea pig. Dinner was tongue and a semi-alcoholic corn drink. Nicely done, B.

Wednesday 2/4
· Left the hostel for more touring.
· Visited political and historical sites, the president’s offices, the house of Spain’s ambassador, etc.
· Visited the equator. Kicked the sign over while doing a handstand. Again, nicely done.
· Flew to Cuenca, which was only 35 min.
· Met the fam- Marcela, Javier, Isabel, and Gabriella (Gabby)
· Isabel is 16 and Gabby is 14
· Bruno the dog is a golden retriever and absolutely adorable.
· Isabel knjows quite a bit of English but Gabby not so much.
· I asked tons of questions and they saw pics of my family, Christin, Mia, and Joel.
· Papa Velez seemed a little rough at first, but he’s cool.
· I’m their seventh charge.

Thursday 2/5
· Started the day with a shower (which was only slightly tricky, as far as foreign showers go, meaning that after a 20 second orientation it took me under 10 min to get it going).
· Then it was off to the classroom for orientation with the hilarious Gustavo. We learned about the history of the church and some cultural tidbits.
· Patricia showed us a bit about the map of the city.
· I had a little time to chill before exploring the bus routes with Patricia and the group. We went downtown.
· We saw the main plazas and hippy market. It was a lot of walking, but we stopped for ice cream (which brought to my attention how inferior ours most definitely is). We saw a little old lady fall off the curb and almost get run over—when I say almost, I mean she still has her left hand and head because she tucked and rolled. Her shawl and knee were less fortunate—the former getting stuck under the wheel and the latter gushing blood, which was sopped up by the former. Then we headed home at six.
· Dinner was hot dogs. I declined mayonnaise and funnions for mine. Culture has its limits. Then I chillaxed with the girls, talking about music, classes, and picking up some words that I probably shouldn’t know. Meh, I’ll write it off as culture.

Friday 2/6
· Best bilingual botches:
o My favorite kind of ice cream is mint (menta) ice cream or mind (mente) ice cream?
o My dad works in a sidewalk (acera) factory instead of a steel (acero) factory.
· I think that after seeing my well-shaped pigtails, Mama Velez made some comment which referenced Ecuadorian conquests, but I didn’t ask her to repeat it.
· We started the day with more exploring with our Spanish teacher, Patricia, to get us more familiarized with the bus system. I’m not sure we paid much attention to the actual routes, but we liked bumping around and watching the locals laugh at us.
· We visited La Fundaccion to see where we’ll be working. Then we headed to El Hospital de los Rios.
· After lunch we went back to the hospital to meet our physiology prof and find out what we’d gotten ourselves into. We had a lot of time left before meeting back at the church, so we chilled in the city with Sebastion, Maria’s son, as our tour guide.
· We visited their grandmother, who’s the cutest little thing, before heading home.
· Then we played cards. They taught me a game, and I showed them Spoons, which Mama Velez promptly schooled me at. After finding a card on the floor, they called me a dirty cheater. After a short trip to the store, I’m calling it a day.

Saturday 2/7
· Kicked off the day with bread and fresh strawberry jelly. A-MAZ-ING. I watched some TV with Gabby, then, by request, we made chocolate chip cookies. Marcela went out especially to buy the ingredients. For the components being a little different and the oven only going to 250 degrees, they turned out pretty well.
· Time to get crackin’ on that 150ish pages of physiology I’m supposed to know by Monday . . .
· Things to get used to: not flushing toilet paper, putting the seat down, making my bed, and wearing shoes in the house.
· Oh yeah, I’m a head taller than all of them. I really feel like I “blend” when we go out.
· Nothing breaks up the boredom of reading a textbook like spending 3 hours visiting relatives. They told me we were just running a few errands . . . It also meant kissing 10 new people— I have no idea who they were— both when we arrived and when we left. I felt like I was playing kissing duck duck goose, just going around the room.
· I’m averaging 10-11 hours of sleep a night. That’s how long it takes for my bilingual brain to regenerate.
· The personal dictionary expands to 200 entries.
· When I noted the arranged fruit basket on the table, I hadn’t considered that it was for some expressed purpose. The basket Marcela took to her sick relatives was minus two strawberries.

Sunday 2/8
· Church was pretty good. The music was more contemporary than I’m used to, which I liked. I understood most of the message, which was about facing giants.
· Not only does my family now know the meaning of “slug bug”, but they are capable of employing “nose goes” for who does the dishes, (Papa Velez lost).

· Spent the afternoon reading and window shopping at the mall. I have to say, it’s kind of an ego trip to be taller than 80% of the population.

· I think I’m corrupting them faster than I intended. Tonight they mastered BS. They caught on pretty fast, but were no match for my master mentirosa skills. If I felt tainted at all, it was in how they pronounce “ace”. Just think of the worst possible way to say it and you’ve probably got it right.

· Mama Marcela won’t stop trying to feed me. I don’t mean like, polite inquiries every so often to make sure I’m fed. She’ll go through a whole list of options, hoping to strike gold with something to tickle my taste buds. Maybe she thinks that if she stuffs me full of food it’ll reverse my growth so I’ll fit in with the locals . . .