Feliz Año! Happy New Year!

Week 16

20th- 26th December 2011

 This week has been full of Christmas fiesta´s and celebrations! The school had its christmas show complete with the selection of the school princess and prince and Carlos´s family partied through the night until 5:30am to loud music to celebrate christmas and ate the pig that we helped select (whilst still alive)! We even managed to have a english christmas dinner on christmas day with Katy, Gill, Victoria and Amy some other missionaries in Santo Domingo.

We where kindly invited along to the staff christmas meal at a parillada restaurant (mixed grill) where they served loads of meat including heart, kidneys and cows udder! Nothing goes to waste out here and whilst we grimace at the thought of eating a cows eye the other teachers on the table raved about how delicious it is and their particular favourite is ´patas´ feet!

Robin perfomed his role well at the school christmas show dressed up as Papa Noel (santa clause) with only one small incident when the teacher managed to glue gun the beard to his scalp! The children all got very excited to see Papa Noel and wanted to sit on his knee and get a sweet off him. The parents were equally delighted as they swrmed round the children like paparazzi blocking the stage off from view as their child came up to perform. Our performance with 5th Basica the oldest students in the school (aged 10-11yrs) singing Jingle Bells and We wish you a merry christmas went very well! All the children rememebered the words and sang loudly. The best bit was that Robin was handed a microphone so everyone could hear his beautiful singing voice. Each class performed a different song or dance and one class even did the nativity play it was chaos but absoloutly fantastic. Best of all where all the amazing and very cute costumes, christmas elves, mini mary´s and shepherds, angels, Bells and presents!

Check out the pictures by clicking on this LINK for our friends photos or this LINK for our photos. 

From each class there was one young boy and girl selected to take part in the schools selection of the princess and prince. It was very cute and slightly strange to watch a pair of 3 yr old´s dressed in big puffy dresses and suites try to strut down the aisle and pose, blowing little kisses to the crowd! But the selection thankfully wasnt by popular vote but by selecting a star of the christmas tree and when they opened it up it said whether they where the princess or not. As it happened Damarsis from 2nd Basica (very intelligent young girl) was eleted princess and Aerial from 5th Basica the prince.

Carlos´s family celebrated Christmas on christmas eve by cooking a big meal for everyone of roast pork and tortilla´s and then spent the rest of the evening dancing, drinking and playing cards. Ceasar had a particular fondness of the microphone and spent most of the evening talking or singing into it! At near midnight all the children bundled into the front room in order to open their christmas presents. Unlike England where adults get presents as well as children in Ecuador it is solely children who get presents and once they hit 15yrs old and are officially an adult they dont get anymore. Also unlike England not that many families can afford to buy christmas gifts for their children including some of the children at the school. But Enoah was absoloutly delighted at her presents and pranced around in her princess tiarra and fluffy shoes jabering away into her fake pink mobile! We received a lovely gift of a traditional idigenous indian wooden mini xylopohone.

Robin is slowly recovering from an overly acidic stomach and possibly amoebic dysantry as well so please continue to pray for his health and mine. Every day people tell us new things that could have caused us to get ill and there is no way of knowing what was the original cause so please pray for our safety whilst eating and drinking. Please also pray we dont get malaria as we have had to stop taking the tablets due to bad reactions to the pills. As we enter this new year please pray for the lives of all the children at the compassion project and school that they wont end up getting into drugs or becoming robbers but that they would be encouraged by the staff and volunteers to achieve the best they can and live God filled lives. Finally as 2012 comes creeping around the corner and our minds drift towards home and our return to old blighty please pray that God will help us find the right jobs upon our return.

Finally a Happy New Year to you all! Lots of love from Ecuador xxx

Other things that have amused us this week:
-  It doesnt sound right but I have to say avocado milkshakes are delicious! We shared one with Freddie this week.
- Eating cows udder and heart at the staff christmas meal. One was very hard and the other very soft!
- Robin pretending to be a ´lobo´ (werewolf) and roaring at the children as all the children from the entire school hid under the stage and screamed everytime he roared.
- Pastor Anibel, Carlos and Reuben barging into our bedroom on christmas eve to pray over Robin´s bad stomach.
- Enoah lying curled up in Robin´s lap sweetly, in her pyjamas until she kicked him in the face!
-Santa Clause coming to visit us all the way out here in Ecuador with some lovely gifts.

Feliz Navidad!! Merry Christmas!!

Week 15

12th -19th December 2011

To all back home in England we love and miss you lots and wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! As I write this, Christmas is only 2 days away and looking out the window, sadly there is no snow instead its quite humid at about 25 degrees! This week has not been the greatest as I have been poorly with amoebic dysantry and high stomach acidity due to a reaction of the anti-malarial drug Ive been taking but thankfully it all cleared up by the weekend so that I could enjoy the Latin Link missionaries English Christmas dinner!

The meal was highly scrumptious complete with turkey and Danish pears. Robin and I contributed to desserts by creating some eton mess (hand whisking two bowls full of cream is no mean feat)! Much merryment was had with christmas games and carol singing in both English and Spanish (in particular a fantastic round of ´the 12 days of Christmas´ with indiviual solos). Robin donned a santa suite and gave out the secret santa presents much to the delight of 4 year old Philipe. Great practice for friday when he has to be santa for the school.

I didn´t spend that much time in school this week but we both enjoyed one of the little boys (David) singing to us a song which all students sing at the beginning of an English lesson. I have a video of it but the connection is very slow out here so I cant upload it, hopefully i´ll get to soon. Another highlight was helping to teach the 2nd inicial class 4-5 year olds how to count to 4 in English.

By thursday I accompanied Robin and Ceasar on a road trip to visit a local tennis club. Robin even got to hit some balls about! Ceasar also had the task of going to a pig farm and selecting a live pig to be roasted for the family christmas meal on the 24th. In Ecuador people celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve and stay up till midnight to exchange gifts and eat a big meal. Thankfully I didn´t choose the pig and instead enjoyed looking at the newly born piglets instead.

On friday we travelled up to Quito for the Christmas meal on saturday. Whilst in Quito we managed to go to the artisiannia market full of beautiful Ecuadorian goods and book ourselves into a jungle trip for the 6th Feb! Very exciting. We have also recieved some post from Ros, Emma Scott, Graham Herbert, Grannibel and Ann Farmer which has been fantastic to read and the chocolate was very much enjoyed!

Please pray for our continuing health (as Robin has now got the stomach acidity reaction as well) and safety. Also please pray for all the children at the compassion project and school who this christmas may not be recieving gifts due to poverty within their families please pray that they will get something to eat and be able to enjoy the day.

Check out the photos by clicking this LINK.

Much festive love to all from Ecuador xxx

Things that have made us chuckle this week:
- Me having to do a poo sample to be tested by a laboratory!
- The joys of living in Ecuador, nits, mosquito bites and intestinal amoebas!
- Robin qualifying from beginner to intermediate level in Spanish.
-Robin attempting to order pizza over the phone in Quito which took 5 attempts as the man on the phone couldn´t get our mobile number right or the cost of the pizza!

An Ecuadorian Wedding!

Week 14

5th- 11th December 2011

This week school has been a mixed bag I managed to make a child cry and we where mauled by thirty children who where extremely over excited to have stylophome in their hands. They mobbed us and took great delight in rubbing our heads with it. On monday I was both greeted and farewelled by one boy´s burps, which was delightful! We are pleased that we are getting to know more of the children´s attitudes and nature´s, they are really quite hardy and often fall over on the concrete floor and pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing happened. Observing PE lessons have often proved hilarious and this week was no exception as the small ones where trying to learn how to do a roley poley through a hoop and all ended up landing on each other and kicking each other!

Robin bumped into an old friend called Freddie this week who use to play football with him and helped construct the Rosa de Sharon Church with the Step team in 2006. Freddie owns a shoes stall at the market and also sells christmas trees (which we where lured in by) he very kindly gave us a christmas tree for the price of a hug such was his delight in seeing Robin!

On thursday I had a very festive day going christmas shopping with Jenny (Carlos´s son Christian´s girlfriend) who helped me haggle and pay the correct prices for things rather than Gringo prices. In the evening I met up with Amy, Victoria and Claire (other missionaries) and we listened to christmas carols, drunk mulled wine and decorated christmas cookies!

We where both very excited about the marriage of Monica and Ricardo on Saturday. It was amazing complete with a Mariachi band and police escort for the bridal party! There were lots of beautiful ´mini bride´ flower girls and Monica´s sisters all looked stunning as well as herself of course! Being an Ecuadorian wedding everyone was crying and very emotional. The bride and grooms first dance turned into a dance remix, there were games involving Ricardo taking a garter off of Monica´s leg and giving it to another single man who had to put it on another single girls leg as the crowd shouted higher higher! But by far the best moment of the evening (other than seeing Monica and Ricardo so happy) was Crazy hour! Crazy hour consists of insane dancing led by a group of scantily clad 15 year olds dragging people up to the floor! No one escaped including Robin and I who deftly tried to follow the dance and ended up bumping into people and facing the wrong way quite alot of the time.

On Sunday we went for another trip to the rio with Carlos´s family but this time we had rubber rings to go down the rapids. Needless to say some of us came home with quite a few bumps and bruises from the pretuding rocks on the rio. Robin enjoyed playing with Enoah in the Rio and we all watched as she fell in head first off of his back! Outside Sandra and Carlos´s house the road was blocked off as the locals where sat out on the street playing street Bingo.

A very fun and eventful week!

Please continue to pray for our health and safety as I am currently unwell with numerous stomach issues and would like to enjoy the Latin Link christmas dinner in Quito on Saturday.

Check out the photos for this week by clicking on this LINK and LINK 2.

Lots of love from Ecuador xxx

Other moments which have made us laugh this week:
-Robin throwing Aerial in the Rio for splashing me and then realising he can´t swim.
- Watching Robin help out with a PE lesson as the children raced in pairs and got upsetwhen they lost.
-Carlos Jnr´s car getting written off as he fell asleep and somehow collided with a horse. (Apologise all animal lovers)

Christmas carols, fiesta´s and food!

Week 13

28th November- 4th December 2011

Please forgive the delayed blogs. I have been unwell with intestinal amoebas and I had a reaction to the doxcyclin anti-malarial I am taking causing my stomach to become mega acidic and rendering me unable to eat. Other than that we are all fine! As I write this on the 15th December we are excited about christmas coming in less than 2 weeks and wish everyone back home a very merry christmass!

At the beginning of this week I was recoverinng from a cold (more illness)! School has been very fun this week as we have been trying to teach a class how to sing ´we wish you a merry christmas´ for the school christmas show on the 23rd of December. Those of you who have had the priviledge of hearing Robin sing may be interested to know that he to will be honing his beautiful singing skills for this event as well! The school is in full christmas swing with tinsel and mini christmas trees decorating the rooms. Unlike England the majority of people in Ecuador celebrate Christmas at midnight on the 24th December and unlike british schools the schools in Santo Domingo will not have any vacations.

We cooked for all of Carlos´s family on thurs 1st December, other than buying way to much pasta, meat, bread and sauce than was needed it went well. After the meal came the usual game of pulling numbers out of the hat to try and get the men to do the washing up unfortunatly it was another blow for the ladies who ended up washing all the plates and utensils outside. Carlos´s family have been and continue to be incredibly generous to us so on sunday we helped Carlos´s son (Ceasar, who lives next door) with some ´Minga´(community work party). We helped clear Ceasar´s garden, essentially mowing/ removing the lawn but using machetes instead of a lawn mower. It was a hot day so afterwards the whole family went on a much needed trip to the rio. Carlos´s family seem to have taken a liking to joking about Mathambero one of the robbers, here is a sample of them:
- Ceasar showing us a picture of all the men of the family with mud on their faces and asking which one is mathambero
-Enoah saying that her sister is a robber and has gone to join Mathambero
- Pati telling Enoah to shut the door not to let Mathambero in. Which sends her flying to the door to slam it shut.

Check out this week´s pictures by clicking on this LINK.

Please pray for our ongoing health and safety this week.

Love from Ecuador xxx

Other moments that have made us laugh this week:
-  Robin dragging two children down the hall as they refused to let go of his leg.
-Robin stripping to his boxers in the middle of a busy market to try on some trousers.
- Rather hilariously we have discovered that Ecuadorians have a deep love of Mr. Bean! This was discovered after Carlos´s family spent most of the day laughing about there favourite bits and watching them on you tube in the evening.

Saca mi punto por favor!

Week 12

21^st- 27^th November 2011

Another busy week! We have traveled to Quito and back for the monthly latin link prayer meeting, worked in the school and gone for a dip in yet another rio! The children have been learning fruit and veg in English and are getting very excited about Christmass as their classroom’s are getting covered in tinsel and decorations. We have officially become the saca mi punto team (pencil sharpener team) amongst the smaller children and the creater of ‘fun’ but educational games for the older children in English lessons. Robin’s favourite is to play a version of splat but using English words.

As usual the children were delightful if a little naughty at times. In p.e this week all the children were learning things about balance by trying to swing a hoop round their bodies or pushing it along the ground. Junior was running wild loving throwing his hoop, in particular at the poor man trying to deliver the clean water bottles to the school.  I have discovered that there is nothing the 3 year olds like better then getting tickled so most of the lunch breaks are spent tickling. Although these children are an absoloute delight they are also the givers of great gifts one of which I have managed to receive ……………….. nits. 

It was great to meet up with everyone in Quito and see how they are all doing.  Unfortunatly I had a stinking cold (along with an itchy head) so we didn’t stay in Quito a long time. 

Sunday our day of rest was interrupted by a trip to a local Rio with Carlos’s family who also brought things for cooking. The rio was fast flowing with rapids and plenty of places to jump in which delighted Robin and terrified me.  Enoah was as keen as always to get into the river and is getting stronger at swimming ……..with her arm bands on. Ceasar, Pati and Christian made a fire and with a huge pan cooked chicken and paticones (fried green bananas) my new Ecuadorian favourite. It was another fantastic day even though the mosquitos took a particular fondness to me!  

Check out our pictures of this week by clicking on this LINK.

This week please pray for our health and safety (boring but essential). Also please pray for continued good relations with Carlos’s family and the teachers and children at the school and compassion project. Finally for lower crime rates in Santo Domingo especially in the barrio’s. 

Mucho Amor de Ecuador xxx

A funny moment this week:

-        -  Ordering  ‘pasta’ with pork for lunch and getting  ‘pata’ a big pig trotter complete with nails intact on my plate. (Pata means foot)

-          -Spending 3 hours in the bathroom removing the nits from my hair!

We have a postal address if anyone wants to send us anything it’s:

Casilla 17-24-351,

Santo Domingo de los Tsachilas,

Ecuador

Always be prepared for your plans to change......

Week 11

14th-20th November 2011

Well this week has certainly been one full of surprises some good and some not so good ! The one thing I will take away from our time in Ecuador is that you never know where a day can take you.  From the pits of despair about having all our photos robbed from us to pure delight swimming in a Rio. This week Carlos’s family have really been a fantastic help to us from cooking us dinner and breakfast to taking us to the supermarket so we can buy some food of our own. 

But let’s step back a second. Before my rather energetic last post just after being mugged we had actually done a few things. On Monday the 14^th we were in school, our first lesson of the day is with 1^st Basica this class is full of lively little characters one of which struggles to sit down for longer than two seconds. I was really proud of robin as he specifically focused his time on this little chap who instead of getting no work done and distracting the whole class, actually managed to  copy the sentence from the board in joined up writing (no mean task when you are 5 years old).  Sometimes it can be a little dis-heartening being a missionary you never feel like you are doing enough or doing something so massively life changing that you know that you have transformed someone’s life forever. But I find that it is in these little helpfull moments when you know that flying half way round the world and taking 6 months out of normal life is worth it. Seeing a child who struggled all morning to write the letter E finally get it, or who can’t understand what a subtraction symbol means compared to addition and finally the light bulb goes on or hearing a three year old master the English word for 1. In previous posts I have been somewhat frustrated at the school and the poverty of the children’s families which has meant they haven’t been pushed or achieved as much as a student in England might have. But it is clear that without this school pupils like Melanie (a little girl who lives in the barrio) would never have attended school and would still be trapped in the cycle of poverty with no basic education. 

I for one am greatful for all the wonderful happy smiling faces of the children this week. If you ever need a cure for getting over the shock of being mugged these little chaps will do it. We went into school the day after being mugged (Wednesday 16^th ) we where greeted by Junior who came bounding up to us to give us a hug and get picked up. That morning we had witnessed a 16 year old boy being taken off by the police, he had been carrying a big knife and was one of the robbers from our attack. It was sad to think that these little children could ever end up in the same situation. 

On Saturday we had a great time at the compassion project helping give out food and hanging out with the older teenagers. The girls kindly took me under their wing and taught me some card games whilst robin played football with the boys.  The children who attend the project all come from the surrounding barrio’s.  The younger boys asked if Robin knew how to fight with a knife, or knew how to fire a gun and where surprised that he didn’t know how to. Violence and crime are so normal to these kids and it was clear to see by looking at the faces of some of the children that they could very easily follow in the footsteps of the robbers and get involved in crime. In that Saturday alone Robin had to break up 3 fights.     

But all is not doom and gloom! We have also had lots of fun this week with an impromptu trip to the rio (river) for a swim with Carlos’s family. Little Enoah (Caesar and Pati’s 2 year old daughter) nearly drowned herself in her eagerness to get into the rio she flung herself in even though she can’t swim. We have also got taken later that day to Katherine and Jonathon’s college fiesta where there was bands playing, dance groups, fireworks and the selection of the school queen (which involved many scantily clad 15 year olds strutting their stuff). On Sunday we got a late night surprise visit by Monica, Ricardo and Priscilla who took us out for an ice cream and to the cinema to see the new twilight film.

Check out our pictures of this week by clicking on this LINK and LINK 2.

Please pray this week for our safety and protection out here and for the children growing up in the barrio’s that they would be able to break out of the cycle of poverty and crime.

Love from Ecuador xxx

Other things that made us chuckle this week:

-        -  Robin going into a pharmacist and being told he has herpes (he doesn’t it was just a cut from a football smacking him in the mouth).

-         - Eating in a restaurant called ‘willys’ ………. Childish I know!

-          -Due to Monica and Ricardo’s impromptu visit I ended up going out wearing my pyjamas to an ice cream parlour and the cinema.

-          -Ceasar, Carlos and Christian’s rigged a number game so that the men could get out of doing the washing up.

A totally crap day!

We got mugged at gun point yesterday.  

We had just finished having lunch at a restaurant literally opposite Carlos and Caesar´s house. In the restaurant was a police man which turned out to be incredibly useful. Across the road is the Church we attend Assemblies de Dios and the area surrounding that side of the road is a Barrio where a few of the poor kids who attend the school live. We finished our meal and started to walk in to the town center ( a way we have walked everyday many many times) we had literally just crossed the road from the restaurant and were about to go round the corner when we got mugged. It all happened very quickly. Firstly I thought someone was pushing past us in a rush but when I turned my head to look there was suddenly a tall black man with a gun pointed at Robin´s head. I let out a involuntary scream of terror! Which I think scared them a bit as they backed off into the road. The gun was still pointed at Robin who was patting down his shorts and showing the robber that he didn´t have a mobile phone on him (which is what the robber was asking for). I turned round and had a small younger chap facing me who just yanked my bag of my shoulder and then they both ran off round the corner. Thankfully a friend of Caesar´s family Kevin who we both know was standing not to far away and saw the whole thing and very kindly took us both back to the restaurant and told the police man everything that had happened and got Caesar and Carlos. Kevin also recognised one of the robbers which is a useful lead. Caesar is good friends with the chief of police for Santo Domingo so they had quite a few police on the case and even a helicopter pretty quickly. But both the black guy and the young chap escaped on a motorbike. We were woken this morning by some police men who had caught the younger chap. It was really quite sad to be honest, he was only 16, his clothes were torn and he looked poor he was sat on the police motorbike in handcuffs. The police had just caught him in the Barrio with a massive knife on his person which just goes to show you never know what these people carry. Now the police have caught him and know who the other black guy is there may be some hope in recovering the usb although not much.

Caesar´s family have been very kind to us and last night took us for something to eat and even got us to drive their new car (I think they wanted to take our minds off of the mugging) and this morning they cooked us a breakfast and invited us over. They are also taking us to the supermarket later on which is where we were heading before the mugging.  We are both fine and neither of us are hurt which is the main thing, we have been told we are very fortunate that they did not hurt us as they could of.

The photos from the week 10 blog will be somewhat reduced as my usb got stolen which had all of the photos on of our time in Ecuador we now only have the ones left on the camera. So there are none of the school or the compassion project or sadly my chickens feet soup!

There is no need to worry, Carlos´s family are being very supportive and we are recovering well from the shock. I have to admit I feel much more wary about just walking down the road but Robin and I are enjoying our time out here and this one blip is not going to stop us from carrying on enjoying our time out here. We love the school, the compassion project, the kids. We are determined to carry on and everyone has supported us really well.

A bit of a low time at the moment but im sure spendng some time with the children at the school will cheer us both up.

If you could please pray for our safety and protection whilst we are out here that would be much appreciated!

Lots of love from both Robin and I
xxx