Friday in Playas

It´s Friday afternoon, and it´s a very hot day, and here I am in the bustling town of Playas. I´m in the internet cafe and it´s quite cool in here, maybe I´ll just stay here for the afternoon!
I came out to the coast to camp on Wednesday, by bus with Janna and Daniel, and arrived feeling as though I´d been beaten up, a combination of the lurching, swaying and jerking of the bus, and the speed at which it traveled when it found open road, and the endless music blaring from the speaker above my head the whole way here. Travel by public trasportation here requires nerves of steel. Being a little deaf would also help!
Anyway, I´m here and it´s wonderful, the beach is still here and that´s one of my favourite places to be. We had lunch on the beach yesterday, at the little establishment right outside the camp. It was my first Ecuadorian meal and was I ready for it! Rice and fried corvina (a local fish), and salad and plantain. SO good. Hard to beat, sitting there eating a great meal gazing down the beach at the sand and and waves. Felt pretty good, indeed.
I had my first casualty right afterwards, though. The 6 young Canadians who have been there getting camp ready, went swimming for awhile after lunch, and I headed up to lie down for a bit, it was so hot, and then heard somebody holler. It was one of the young guys, got himself stung by a stingray. Oh great! I had a idea what to do, but it was hard to know whether or not to take him to get more attention than I was equipped to give. So I prayed hard, and did what I knew, which is to get the foot into water as hot as he could stand as quickly as possible, give him some Advil and Benadryl, and then Ray looked on the internet to see if there was anything else we should be doing. There didn´t seem to be anything else, the only other worry is if there is a piece of the stinger left behind, but I investigated that as far as I dared, and I couldn´t see anything, and after an hour or so of being in the water he was feeling better, and by last night he was fine! What a relief. Stingray injuries haven´t been all that common at the North Burlingotn Medical Centre! I hope this isn´t going to be a common happening this year.

I'm official!

So in the end it only took a day and a half, and all my paperwork that had to be done after arriving, is done! It seemed tedious at the time, nobody can create red tape like the Ecuadorians can. But I'm told it went fairly smoothly, compared to the experience that others have had. But my goodness, the hoops you have to go through, and the amount of paper that you have to gather and hand over.....makes a trip to a passport office in Canada look like a party!Today I had to get my "censo" a little card that all foreigners living here have to get. I gave that guy 9 pieces of paper, which he didn't even look at. AND my passport. Janna and I got to that office at 7:30 this morning, to stand in line, just to be given a number, which then meant that we could wait for a very long time (2 1/2 hours) and then finally get our stuff processed. But at least it was all done in one place. Yesterday's outing to get my visa registered involved standing in a line, only to find out it was the wrong line, then get into the right one to find out which papers I needed copies of, go next door to an opportunist who had 2 photocopiers set up in a vacant space. He was a pro, copying 2 or 3 peoples' documents at a time, keeping it all straight, knowing who owed how much, and selling the right sized envelopes and folders that next door would require. All for $0.80. Then back to the office, give it all to the guy, who gave me a piece of paper that said I had to pay $10. But not to him, oh no, I had to go off to find a bank 2 blocks away, stand in line there, and pay a teller, who gave me a receipt to take back to my original man. Which I did triumphantly, expecting all to be done. But no. Come back tomorrow, he said, keeping my passport. Tomorrow?????? So we did our sad, pleading "what are we going to do?" thing,and he said okay come back at 2. And that was that.
So more Ecuadorian experiences to add to the collection. What next? Stand by to find out!

Sunday

This is the end of my second full day here, and I'm starting to get my feet under me. I didn't feel settled at all yesterday, partly because there isn't really a place for me to settle yet. I was between houses Friday and Saturday, but by last evening was in what will be my house sometime in March, and was on my own. But I felt very out of sorts. It's altogether a different feeling to be here this time. Kind of between lives at the moment, I guess. The Canadian life is behind me, for the time being, and the new Ecuadorian life hasn't yet begun. I haven't even got to the familiar camp life yet.
But this morning I went to Bastion to church, and saw all my friends for the first time, and I remembered why I was here. I crossed that dreaded busy road to Bastion Popular (the squatter community where I'll be working), and into such a welcome. I was well and truly hugged by all, I know where to go if I'm ever in need of a hug!!
It was SO good to see everybody again after a year. The year goes by so quickly in some ways, but it feels like it's been a long time when you see the folks you've missed.
My Spanish has been pulled from the shelf and is getting dusted off, and the rusty spots are showing. It got a workout this morning,and it was a huge relief to get to the church in Block 10 and find my friend Daniel has carried on with his English study and is really good now. I had a great long chat with him in English, and it was good to give my poor Spanish a break. I'm hoping that maybe I'll just wake up one morning and find that I'm fluent! Well, I know it's unlikely, but it would be nice, wouldn't it?!
Before I headed out this morning,I sat with my coffee and read my Bible a bit and landed on verses that I knew, but needed again today - Isaiah 41 v 10 & 13: "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you........" "For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear: I will help you." And I hold those promises close as I go forward.

I made it!!!

So I thought that Wednesday was a difficult day. But nature seemed to be out to get me at both ends of this trip. Thursday morning we headed off to the airport to do it all over agin, still snowing, so without a great deal of confidence that I would leave, hoping that Wednesday wouldn´t be repeated. But no problem, the flight was on time, and we got off to Miami. And arrived there in good time, time for me to find a Starbuck´s and get my caffeine fix, sit awhile and think that things were going really well this time. Then went to look for my next flight on the departures board. Funny, it´s not there. Try another board. Not there either. So I went to find someone to ask, and was given the unhappy news that Guayaquil airport was closed because of the erupting volcano!! And so my flight wouldn´t be going anywhere until 6 the next morning. I simply couldn´t believe it. But what do you do - nothing to do but get used to the idea and then figure out what to do. 14 hours to put in at Miami airport. Which I did, wandered around trying to get information from various people, then went outside and sat in the warm Florida breeze for awhile. Made some phone calls home,and then got supper. I was told that there was an auditorium upstairs in a disused part of the airport where they would be setting up cots for all the stranded passengers. So I went off to find it ( I began to feel like the guy in "The Terminal", finding odd corners of the airport). Sure enough there were rows of canvas cots all set up with a tiny pillow and blanket. I staked a claim to one, and it did feel good to finally stretch out. I had thought I be spending the night upright in a chair. But I think I have an inklling now of how it feels to be a refugee. (Not really, I know that is something much worse) It was just lying down on a cot in this huge room full of cots and mostly Spanish speaking people. I think all the rich white folks had gone to hotels. But I did sleep a bit, but gave up at 2:30 and went back downstairs. I wasn´t going to take any chances on missing that plane if it went at 6.
And it did go, and I didn´t miss it, and by 10:15 I had landed in Guayaquil. And now I´m here, feeling slightly stunned and unreal, but a good night´s sleep should fix that. And after all the problems getting here, I´am very thankful to have finally made it.

snowed in!

So this is the day on which I should have been on my way to Ecuador. As I write this, by now I should have been on the final leg of the trip between Miami and Guayaquil. But of course, this is Canada and it`s February, and snow can happen. And did happen. And so instead of being almost there, I`m at my parents` house waiting for another try tomorrow. And it`s still snowing. Hard. So we`ll see.

Everything went smoothly at first, it was a little slow driving to the airport, but we got there in good time, and all went smoothly there. No, no, the man who checked me in said, the flight will be going and on time. Oh good. And I was at my gate by 7:30. Then suddenly it was going to be delayed until 12:10, and then by 10:30, it was cancelled. So back out we all went, collected the bags that we thought we`d seen the last of, got re-booked, I called the family to come and get me, and 5 hours after I had arrived at the airport, I left it, having accomplished nothing. Except to spend a lot of time in a crowded gate area, spend a lot of money on things like water ($2.79!!) and yogurt ($1.99!!) and wait a lot.
So I am booked onto the same flights tomorrow, same time, same station, different day! And I will get to say goodbye all over again. I just pray that tonight`s snow will be done in time to be able to leave.
So I hope that the next post will be to say I`ve arrived.

a few more days

Only 4 more days before I leave this cold and snow for something completely different. It snowed yesterday, and I went for a walk in it, and as I trudged through the snow, I tried to think about what I would be feeling next Friday, and couldn't get my head around knowing that by then I'd be very hot, very sticky and no longer able to grasp the concept of cold!

I'm getting ready bit by bit for this great adventure, still not feeling that this is all real. My supplies are all bought (except for some more Muskol, hard to find on February 1st). A couple of bags are partially packed and I'm gradually learning all the new technology that has come into my life as a result of this move. There have been a couple of good-bye get-togethers with my friends, and tonight there is a big family gathering. And then it will be a matter of getting down to business and getting ready in earnest.