January 3, 2011
Hola Todos!
It has not hit me yet that we are in a new year – people here say “Feliz año viejo” (trsn. Happy
Old Year) half the time and “Feliz año nuevo” (trns. Happy New Year”) the other half of the time. I am still trying to figure out which one I am supposed to be happy about. The past year was probably the most challenging, yet adventurous and fulfilling year of my life so far. I have a feeling this next year will be similar.
Considering that I have not updated my blog since before Thanksgiving, here are a few highlights from the past few months…
In the middle of November, Carlos and Alexis (supervisors of the community organizing office at Hogar de Cristo) asked me for help with a medical brigade. We had 8 days to pull together a location for 500 patients, 21 doctors and 15 dentists. Veronica (my boss) wanted nothing to do with the brigade, considering the disorganization and short notice. I figured that if the doctors were willing to come, we might as well piece some sort of brigade together. Maybe a few people would get to visit a doctor that normally would not have the opportunity. Two days before the scheduled date, we finally found a location for the brigade (up until this time, I was convinced it was not going to happen). It was amazing to see the community members pull together and take time out to clean the school, rearrange desks to form small exam rooms, hang sheets for curtains, squeeze 300 oranges for refreshments, and form a ticket system to organize the 500 patients expected to attend.
From my North American perspective, the brigade was a train wreck. Every detail that we had forgotten became blatantly obvious in the first 15 minutes of the event. Our ticket system turned into a mass of demanding mothers pushing their children at the doctors (which turned out to be medical students). The doctor´s didn´t have pens to write prescriptions, and dental patients had nowhere to spit, but on the classroom floors. Details aside, I was taken back by how little the doctors actually did. Of course, everyone wants the quick fix to their running nose and cough, so the doctors literally sat at the tables, handing out antibiotics for every sniffle and complaint. I did not see one physical exam – not even eye contact between the doctors and the patients. The dentists pulled teeth from patients sitting in plastic chairs, with pools of spit and blood on the classroom floors. For lack of finding a place to make myself useful during this mess, I resorted to visiting with the patients (many of which I knew), holding babies, and handing out orange juice. By 2 in the afternoon, the doctors had handed out all the antibiotics, packed up and took off.
I left the brigade with a huge rock in my stomach – wondering if we had done more harm than good. Alexis and Carlos, on the other hand, left that day delighted at the work they had done. They had successfully arranged for the doctors and patients to be in the same spot at the same time. That was their job – and according to them, it went well….but I still left the brigade wondering if we did more harm than good. People here are desperate for health care. In desperate situations, anything goes. Sanitation, regulations, and quality of care are the first to go. We are feeding the mentality that antibiotics and medication are the quick fix to illness. There are no records from that day, no referrals for the more serious cases, and no education for prevention for the patients. What a missed opportunity!
The beginning of December was soaked up by preparations for La Tercera Casa Abierta – Promoción de Salud. Every December, Hogar has an open house, in honor of AIDS awareness month. We invited Fundación Vihda and REDIMA (to large HIV organizations) to offer presentations and free HIV testing for anyone interested. We invited over 600 people (including 3 high schools, residents of Mt. Sinai, and all the women enrolled in the micro loan program from Hogar). Unfortunately, the principal of our biggest high school (300 students) let the kids out of class 2 hours early, but forgot to tell the kids to come to the talk … Later in the day, about 400 people came to the talk, so it was not a lost cause. But, a huge missed opportunity for these kids and another example of the disorganization within these institutions.
In Monte Sinai, December was a busy month for us. Marita and Jeff decided to have a Christmas choir at Santa Teresa (one of our three churches), and I helped Marita organize a Christmas play. The time spent practicing for these performances, along with singing Christmas carols with the kids at the San Felipe school, and participating in a Latin American Christmas tradition called Las Posadas made my advent season incredibly special this year. We had three masses in Monte Sinai for Christmas. At San Felipe, our six-member children´s choir performed the Christmas songs - complete with actions that they choreographed themselves. For the Christmas play, we wrapped them in sheets, put angel wings on some and crowns on others. They performed a captivating rendition of Jesus´ birth. At San Felipe, several Josephs’ and Marys’ made an appearance, who also sat in the life-size manger during mass. After each mass, we celebrated with food (rice and chicken) and of course cola, and moved on to the next mass.
It was really good for me to celebrate Christmas without snow, Christmas lights, hot chocolate, and vast amounts of Christmas cookies. I have spent my last four years of Advent cramming for finals in the library, relying on these material goods for my warm, fuzzy Christmas feeling. This year, there was almost nothing about my environment to get me into the Christmas mood. That’s not exactly true… I did listen to the “Christmas Doo-Wop Party” while transplanting the watermelons in the garden (in shorts and a t-shirt) to get into the mood. And, we did hang garland on our empty curtain hangers… But needless to say, these preparations were nothing compared to my usual. (My family can attest to my love for Christmas cookies and decorations). The simplicity allowed me the time and space to focus hard on what Advent means to me – and how special Christmas can be without the fluff.
The poverty in our community was not covered up by Christmas lights and caroling. If anything, it became more apparent to me during the holidays. It was well known which families may not have Christmas dinner or be able travel to see their families during this special time. I was blown away by the concern people showed for others – the nuns, and a couple of our closest friends put a huge amount of time and thought into making the holiday special for those who would go without a Christmas dinner, or a special treat for the kids. A couple of mom’s put on a neighborhood celebration for the kids on the 23rd – with food, games, candy, clowns, and all. Sylvia, from Santa Teresa, put tireless hours into decorating the church, preparing a meal for after Christmas mass, and organizing the kids for our performances. Seeing the smiles on everyone’s faces during Christmas mass made my season complete.
For the 25th, all the volunteers met at Sister Annie´s house (the director of Damien House - one of the Duran work sites). Sister Annie prepared a huge Italian meal, complete with Eggplant Parmesan and Spaghetti. From here, we all slept in Duran and took off early the next morning for vacation in the southern Sierra mountain range of Ecuador. I am not sure how I got selected as the trip-organizer... I tend to travel without a plan. My travel-buddies realized this soon after we got off the bus in Loja - after an hour walk trying to find our hostel. It was only $4 dollars a night! - Complete with warm water and heavy blankets for sleeping. After a long night in saggy beds, we woke up the next morning and jumped into a taxi to take us to the nearby Podocarpus National Park. This park is famous for its cloud forest, which harbors the most ecosystems in one small area in the world. Some friendly Germans picked us up at the entrance of the park and took us to the trail head, from where you can hike through various types of cloud forest. The map advertised a 3 hour hike, looking relatively flat and easy to follow. Three hours later, we were still hiking straight up a mountain peering over a canopy of forests and a vast landscape of mountains. The entire loop took 5 hours to complete. With our eyes full and stomachs beyond empty, we returned to Loja and caught our bus to Vilcabamba.
Vilcabamba is advertised as a quiet hippie town, full of foreigners (mostly Europeans) and tons of hiking, biking, and horseback riding opportunities. Aaron, Kipp, Brenden, and I took advantage of all the mountaineering sports, starting our first day with a hike to a huge waterfall, nestled in the mountains. Our second day, we rented bikes from "El Chino", and biked up the river with our lunches. We spent quite a bit of time walking up the river, climbing rocks, drinking the water, and taking pictures. The water in Vilcabamba is all fresh spring water - those who drink it are said to have longer lives. Our last day in Vilcabamba was the highlight for us all. We scheduled a 4 hour trail ride with Holger Horses - a carefree mountain man from just outside of town. Holger had a wild pack of horses. We jumped on with little instruction and climbed the mountains once again, up to Holger´s farm which is situated on the side of a mountain. Their farm was completely sustainable, with over 300 chickens, 4 cows, and a donkey for hauling water from the valley below. His family fed us home-grown bananas and coffee and walked us up to the peak of the mountain to see all of Vilcabamba. Mom- if I don´t come home next year, you will probably find me at Holger´s house giving trail rides and eating bananas...
With plans to catch a night bus back to Guayaquil from Loja, we decided to grab something to eat at the only place that sells cuy (the traditional coastal cuisine of roasted guinea pig) in Vilcabamba. It was an interesting restaurant experience to say the least. They serve the cuy oven-roasted sprawled out on a platter, all body parts intact. To wash the cuy down, the owner of the restaurant treated us to his specialty drink, called snake juice.
**Grandma, you may want to stop reading here...
Snake juice is a cane liquor, in which one puts a large yellow and black coral snake in a large jar that sits by the cash register. After 8-24 days of soaking, the alcohol is ready to serve - with a lot lime and salt. Needless to say, we were lucky we could see straight enough to catch our buses to Loja and Guayaquil after filling ourselves with guinea pig and snake juice. ‘Ya only live once,’ right?
**Grandma, start again here.
We returned to Mt. Sinai just in time to bring in the New Year. Arriving home at 8:30 in the morning, the five of us took a quick nap and baked a huge batch of banana bread to distribute to our neighbors for the holidays. We had a blast stopping by everyone´s house, drinking some cola at each, eating a mango here and some pan de pasqua (Christmas bread) there. To the Spanish speakers out there, do not be confused. Yes, Pascua does mean Easter, but pan de pascua is only eaten at Christmas. Nobody seems to have an explanation for this tradition. We ate turkey with avocado and custard at Consuelo´s house and ended at Marianna´s house for the midnight celebrations.
Ecuadorians do not take the New Year lightly. Each family buys a monegote (Piñata-like figure stuffed with fireworks) and lights it on fire at midnight. We could hear explosions all over Mt. Sinai, as the streets were lined with bonfires. Marianna treated us to chicken, rice, and hot chocolate at one in the morning for our first meal of the New Year. We spent the next hour learning about the Ecuadorian customs for the New Year. Here are a few that I found especially entertaining... Ecuadorians pick 12 New Year´s resolutions. If you want to keep these resolutions for the entire year, you need to eat a grape for each one, while wearing yellow underwear. (I guess you need to plan ahead so they are clean for the New Year). If you are planning to leave the country in the next year, you have to pack your suitcase on the night of the 31st and as the clock strikes midnight, sprint around the block. This will give you safe travels on your journey outside the country. Finally, if you are planning on traveling inside the country, the same exercise around the kitchen table will suffice. I suppose wearing yellow underwear would not hurt if you so desired. Stuffed full of holiday food, we left Marianna´s at 2 AM, played Foosball for an hour in the street, and crashed into bed at three in the morning. The rest is history.
So, here we are in 2011. I am forever grateful for the opportunities that passed in 2010 - especially for my family and friends that have supported me all along the way. If this New Year is anything like the past year, we are in for yet another adventure. Who knows where this year will take us!?
