Unexpected Transitions

For those of you who don't know, I have spent the past 45 days in the U.S. on medical leave. I'm sorry if that comes as a surprise, but I didn't want to alarm anyone unnecessarily. Nor did I want to write before I had any concrete information to share. 

Medically, I am fine. Fine in the sense that what I have is not anything that is putting my life in danger. As sometimes happens in foreign cultures, my body picked up a virus that it's having trouble fighting. A virus that has convinced my stomach that solid food is the enemy. Doctors here in the U.S. have told me that it will likely take a minimum of six months for my body to recover completely. And because the ideology of the Peace Corps is so dependent on the volunteer's daily, physical presence in his/her community, I have been medically separated from my service. Meaning that I will not be returning to Ecuador as a Peace Corps volunteer.

I have had 45 long days to think about this reality. To hope against it. To fear it. To slowly come to terms with it. And while life keeps moving and demands that I begin the search for a new job, there are moments each day when my breath catches in my throat as I remember again that my time in Ecuador has come to an end.  

In this unexpected time of transition, these words by Wendell Berry have provided much needed perspective. 

"Most people are looking for a 'better place,' which means that a lot of them will end up in a worse one...There is no 'better place' than this, not in this world. And it is by place we've got, and our love for it and our keeping of it that this world is joined to Heaven" (Hannah Coulter 88).

Place. Our love for it. Our keeping of it. Right now my place is here in Connecticut. It is not a better or worse place than Ecuador. There is meaningful work to be done here, and kind, beautiful people with whom to be present. There are lessons to be learned and opportunities for growth. There are blessings and so much for which to be thankful.

That being said, I will be on a plane to Ecuador the minute my body is healthy enough to visit the country and people who welcomed, inspired, and changed me. To the Carrion and Hidalgo families, the staff and families of Juconi, PC Ecuador, and Omnibus 110 - thank you. I am better for knowing you.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know I've been quiet this month, but before the day is over I want to use this space to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I had a wonderful day here in Ecuador, and, because I love this holiday so much, I've only just begun celebrating. Tomorrow I'll share Thanksgiving with my group of girls, complete with apple pie and pin the feather on the turkey. (Pictures to come!) And on Saturday I'll be cooking a Thanksgiving meal with a group of fellow volunteers in a nearby mountain town.

While it's difficult to be so far from all of you, especially around the holidays, I am so thankful for this opportunity to work and live in Ecuador. Thank you for all of your support and for the intentional ways you stay in contact with me. You fill my heart.

I hope you all enjoyed a day filled with family and reflection and pecan pie. Much much love to you and yours.

A Week In The Life

As my grandmother so kindly reminded me via email this week, I last posted in September and it is now the middle of October. Not to mention that my last two posts were mainly photos. So, here they come. Words!

I've had quite a few of you ask me what type of work I'm actually doing here with Juconi. Which means, and this doesn't surprise me, that I've been less clear than I thought I was being. So, to clarify, here's what a typical week looks like for me. 

Monday: I'm out of the office and doing house visits. I meet another one of my co-workers at 7:30, and we take a bus to the northern outskirts of Guayaquil, to a barrio called La Balerio. We spend the day visiting three different families, and, because we're both new to Juconi, we conduct "Operación Amistad" with the eleven children we see over the course of the day. Operation Friendship. Jenga and Uno and Pick Up Sticks and coloring pages and princess cutouts and storybooks and more coloring pages and dancing to Marc Antony's latest hits. Little by little learning favorite colors and family dynamics.

Tuesday: I'm in the office today, more thankful than I'm willing to admit for the break from the dust-covered barrios. The air-conditioning blows sweetly, and I pull a cardigan out of my bag before going downstairs to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee that isn't instant.  I spend the day planning the home visits that will come later in the week and the girls' group that I run each Friday. Pinterest, a website I once naively mocked, is open on the computer screen. I look through pages and pages of ideas, a parasite feeding on the creativity of others, searching for the recycled art project that will win the affection of teenage girls.

Wednesday:  Today is my favorite day of house visits. I meet one of my co-workers at 6:45, and we once again head North to the barrio, Lomas de la Florida. I accompany her on her first two visits of the morning, and while she talks with the mothers, I meet with two teenage girls, ages 14 and 17. We make friendship bracelets and listen to Reik or Miriam Hernandez. I ask questions, probably too many, but they answer them, more willingly this week than last week. In the afternoon I'm passed to another co-worker for our afternoon visits. I build lego castles and color alphabet pages with a 3 year old girl who doesn't say a word in the hour and a half I'm with her. And I finish out the day working with a 15 year old mom and her 1 year old son, wondering how many resources it would take to disrupt these patterns of living.

Thursday: I'm doing house visits in the North again, this time visiting nine children in three different barrios. It's a long day; my co-worker and I spend almost as much time on buses as in the homes. Most of kids I work with today are six years old or younger. And for as much as I burnt out on working with this age group in the past couple of years, I know how to work with them. They're not as mysterious or jaded as teenagers, and, at the end of the week, I'm thankful for that.

Friday: I'm in the office today. I bring out the brownies I baked last night, part of my own Operation Friendship here in the office, and offer them to my co-workers. (Shameless integration tactics.) I spend the morning gathering materials for my afternoon girls' group and attending office meetings. By 2:30 somewhere between ten and fifteen girls show up, and we spend the next two hours together. This week we're embroidering our names on home-made paper journals. As a group we're definitely still in the first hour of Stand & Deliver, the part of the movie when the teacher's patience is tried again and again and again. The part everyone forgets about by the end of the movie when the inspirational teacher has drawn all of the positive potential from his once unruly, misunderstood students. So I do a lot of deep breathing exercises and try to let go of my love for rules and order and logic, comforts that have not been afforded to these girls.


I hope that gives you all a better sense of how I'm spending my time with Juconi. Right now, the house visits are a really great way to get to know the population that Juconi serves. In upcoming months, I hope to trade in a day of these visits to start a group for adolescent mothers with their children. Juconi seems really open to any ideas I may have, and I'm looking forward to taking advantage of that freedom.


Thanks for reading and for caring about what my life looks like here. All my love from Ecuador.

Un Paseo.

 As it's currently school vacation here on the coast, two of my co-workers and I went to the beach with one of our families. Why? Because when you're a young mother of five living in a two room home, it's important to get out, indulge in some ocean therapy, and enjoy your family away from the stresses of daily life. 

Fun was had by all. Especially by these kiddos. 

Mountain Therapy

Today I am thankful for friends that live in parts of Ecuador more beautiful than Guayaquil. And for their hospitality. And for their patience with me as I exclaim every five minutes, "Look at all the green!" 

Salinas, Guaranda

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - John Muir 

Así es la vida.

"...and a couple weeks ago I found this turtle outside....just right outside my door. In my yard. I didn't take it from anywhere else. And well, it was so cute and tiny, and so I brought it inside. And I gave it some water and a little rice to eat. We decided we would keep it as a pet. And then that woman, you know, the one who lives over there. Well she saw my kids playing with the turtle on Saturday and came over and demanded that I give her back her turtle. As if she can just claim any turtle she wants whenever she wants. Imagine. But I refused. And plus, she stole our rabbit last year...and there was a baby chicken too. So I told her, when I get my rabbit back, you can have your turtle. Well that made her angry, but at least she left. Well the next week the turtle started bleeding from its nose. A lot of blood just pouring from its little nose. So we gave it to away to that family, the one with all those kids." 

It's Monday morning, just a little after 9:00. I'm sitting on a plastic stool across from Señora Elizabeth, my back leaning tentatively against a wooden post. She sits on the edge of the bed, one of her sons sprawled out next to her doing his math homework. Her oldest daughter across the room cooking breakfast. Two dogs wander in from the dirt yard, and she momentarily interrupts her story to chase them out, a piece of cane in hand. I take advantage of this distraction and lift my hat to wipe the sweat from my forehead. The morning is hot, more so than usual. The sun torturing us with its premature arrival, making the climb up the dirt hills to the house more strenuous than normal. 

"Ya bueno..." She searches for her place in the story and launches in again. I fix my attention on her rapidly moving mouth. Search for extra clues in her thin hands and arched eyebrows. And while I wish she would slow down and drop whatever grudge she holds against the letter "s," I've mastered the art of looking like I understand perfectly - the expert combination of attentive nods, light chuckles, and murmurs of agreement. "Ah, claro. Si, yo veo." 

She finishes her story, one that takes fifteen minutes to tell, and I have a two minute outline. And I wonder what I missed. What details she found important that I lost. And I have questions. Why is she telling me this story? Am I supposed to focus on the feud with the neighbor? Or the traumatizing loss of a beloved pet? Or her strength as someone who will not be pushed around? And the turtle. What disease makes a turtle bleed from the nose? And why did she give it away so quickly? Did it die? 

I ask these last few, partly out of curiosity, partly out of a need to have some response. "No sé, señorita. No sé." And then, after a pause, "Así es la vida." 

I laugh then. Not a slight chuckle but a real laugh. "Así es la vida." Sometimes turtles bleed from their noses. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they don't. 

Así es la vida.  

One Thing Among Many

Love means to look at yourself

The way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills- 

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

-Czeslaw Milosz