water

Isn't this just the most entertaining land! I just got back in from getting water. And things never seem to happen as you think they're going to.
Here, of course, one doesn't drink the tap water, you buy water in great big blue bottles. Tonight I suddenly remembered that I needed water, so I grabbed my empty and went up and around the corner to a little "tienda", a sort of corner shop that someone has set up out the front of their house. While I was waiting my turn, along came a lady who asked me if I needed water. Yes, I said. "Vamos" - let's go, she said, so as I wasn't making much progress where I was, I went, not having any idea where I was going! Down the stairs, past my front door, and along a few houses, and I realized she was a neighbour. So into her house we went, and I'm still wondering where the water is coming from. The house is quite luxurious by Caracol standards, all ceramic tile and everything quite lovely. And I can't see a supply of big blue bottles anywhere. So then she shows me a separate tap at her kitchen sink, she has a filter system. She gets out a glass and pours me a taste test, I approve, so then she gets a little jug and starts filling my big bottle, bit by bit. And while she did, we chatted. Turns out she worked in the US for 25 years, and tomorrow is going back for a visit, staying until November.
So she filled my bottle 3/4 full, all I was able to carry home, and off I went, with my filtered water from a kind and generous neighbour, my new best friend who is leaving town. What a place!

photos

I have added a link below in the "Onzole continued" post for pictures of that trip

Kids' camp

Time hurries on by at such a rate! Kids' camp has been over almost a week now, and I'm just getting down to writing about it. It had just started when I last wrote.

It was a great week, in spite of one or 2 hitches along the way. The water continued to be an issue all week, for some reason the city water was coming into our tank at a trickle, and that couldn't keep up with the need. So by Monday afternoon, we had run out again. the cry went up again - "No hay agua!" (there's no water!). So the solution was to bring it in by tanker twice a day, and that kept us going. So then all was well, until the last evening, when the program for the final night was just getting underway. Everything suddenly went black - no power. This is a common happening here, and usually you just wait and it comes back on in due course. But I looked around and realized that neighbours on all sides had power, it was just us. So probably a bigger problem. And It didn't come back on. But in true Ecuadorian style, the program went on, with a couple of feeble flashlights, and the headlights from Ray's car, which he moved into position to add some light to the scene. It was also pouring rain. So the evening progressed and the awards were given out, winning team announced and all was celebrated as it should be. But between the lack of light and the rain, it meant that it all wrapped up and everybody went to bed a lot sooner than usual - not a bad thing in my opinion!

The power thing turned out to be something between our transformer and the wires that feed us our electricity. For awhile it looked like it was the transformer, which would have meant a huge expense to replace, but it turned out to be a smaller job. It was repaired later in the week. But in the meantime, no power meant no pump, and - oh no! No water again! So we had to leave camp uncleaned.

Healthwise,the week began really well, no problems, no sickness, no injury. On Thursday morning I was in the cyber in Playas writing an email to someone, saying that it had been a really easy week for the nurse. Just then my cell phone rang, it was Janna telling me that a little guy had fallen and either dislocated his shoulder or broken his collarbone. Please come back quickly! When I got there, I looked at it, and decided that it was probably the collarbone. So we called the local clinic to see if they could do x-rays, and they couldn't but the doctors were having lunch at a hotel close to us, so they would come and look. Which they did. I told Alejandro that he must be really important, the doctor was coming right to camp to see him! They confirmed what I had thought, and said that he needed a splint, which one of them would buy in Guayaquil and they would put it on the next day. We got it x-rayed later in the afternoon ($20 for an x-ray and consultation), and I made a call to one of the doctors at my clinic in Canada for advice. Next day we took him to the clinic, got the splint applied, and that was that! Alejandro by then thought he was pretty special, was quite pleased with himself. So what began as an "oh no, now what do we do" situation, finished off well. But it is indeed an education for me to learn how to navigate this healthcare system, or lack thereof. Skills I'm going to be needing as I start this new life.

The other crisis that day was another stingray sting, to Daniel Lucas, which happened while I was back at camp between attempts to get the xrays done. He took it very well, and by now we knew what to do, I like to think I'm becoming a bit of an expert on this one! Into the hot water went the foot, and we waited it out, while swarms of concerned campers and counsellors looked on. Could he possibly have been enjoying it all just a bit? Concerned females giving him treats and attention? No, of course not!

But in spite of all these happenings, the week was a very good one. William and Johanna did a superb job of running the camp, and the counsellors were involved with the kids and everybody had a lot of fun. The tides were very high for the early part of the week, so the schedule was adjusted and the beach time was in the morning when the tide was out, and it was safer. It was good to see the new young counsellors doing the job, and doing it well. Leading groups, doing devotions with their cabin, and serving the food at mealtimes, and keeping good control of it all. A couple of the older counsellors ended the week feeling really good about time they had spent talking one on one with a child, and leading the child to the Lord. We pray for the seed that is planted during that one short time at camp, and that the ones who were counsellors will be able to shepherd the kids once they're back in Bastion, and be an example. They will see each other around the streets lots.

back at camp

Wow, it´s a whole week since I last updated this. I´ve been out at Playas since last Tuesday, with limited access to internet.
I came out here last week, and with nobody at camp just yet, spent a lovely peaceful day on Wednesday. I alternated my time between the beach and a hammock underneath the cabins, in the shade, in a lovely cool breeze off the ocean. I walked on the beach, read, dozed, thought, prayed, stared at the ocean, and did a lot of nothing much. It was very soul restoring. And I didn´t feel the least bit guilty about it (well, only a tiny bit) because I knew that soon enough the peace would be over.
And sure enough, Thursday morning, a bus full of Canadians and some youth from the church in Alborada arrived. And then in the afternoon more arrived, and finally late that evening a bus packed full of youth from Bastion arrived. That bus was so full it was bulging! They all came for a training weekend, a time for all these potential leaders to spend time learning about serving at camp. So for the next 2 days there were Bible studies, workshops, time spent on getting ready for this weeks´ camp, and then lots of fun too -soccer games, beach time. It was good for me to see them all in action, because I have seen so many of those kids grow up, coming to camp as children and young ones, and now here they all are, growing or grown up, becoming leaders themselves. It was a very good couple of days.

Then yesterday, was the start of the childrens´camp. 2 busloads of children (ages 9 to 12, more than 100 of them, all from Bastion) arrived to a welcome team of 2 guys on the tallest stilts you ever saw, and another guy beating a drum, and hundreds of balloons. The noise was astonishing, between barking dogs, banging drums, bursting balloons, and yelling kids, but those kids were well and truly welcomed!
And so kids´camp has begun. There were challenges yesterday, we had no water for 24 hours, it all vanished on Sunday afternoon, and didn´t get sorted out until yesterday afternoon. Made things more than a little difficult in the kitchen (and the potential for problems in the bathrooms was something I didn´t want to think about!), but Ecuadorians are a resourceful people, and we managed to get things done. But great was the rejoicing when we turned on a tap in the afternoon and water flowed!
So the week is ahead, and I´m praying for good health for them all and safety on the beach, as always. There have been unusually high tides again. And for patience and wisdom for a lot of new young counsellors.
And now I´d better get back to that camp to see what illness or injuries await!

fun day in Santo Domingo

One of the hightlights of our time in the village was a family fun day the Canadians organized for the whole village. On Thursday, they put on a huge push and got all the construction work completed by lunchtime, and then the afternoon was devoted to just fun. Everybody gathered together in a big open area, and sent out the word to bring all the family along. And people came, dozens of kids, mothers, fathers, grandmothers! They were divided into 3 groups which went to 3 different areas and played games. Silly games, fun games, like finger fencing, rock, paper, scissors, and many others. And everybody, adults included joined in and had a blast. You never saw such hilarity. After awhile the groups rotated and played some more. Then when the games were over, they all gathered back together in the main "square" to do a craft that someone in Canada had organized into many ziplock bags. A very simple craft, glue a picture cut out from a greeting card onto a piece of cardstock, along with some little foam shapes, tie a ribbon into 2 holes at the top, and there you have something to hang up in your house. Well, I'm telling you, you have to have seen it to believe it. EVERYBODY did this craft. I got the biggest kick out of seeing the men, big strong men, even the toughest of those guys, sitting on the ground intently gluing little foam shapes into place. Unfortunately my battery had died by then so I didn't get any pictures of that, but it's a sight I'll never forget.
Then there was a snack for everybody. The day before, under Nikki''s direction, we had made about 500 scones, using the oven of the local bread bakery. So we gave those out and someone in the village had also made a local specialty - a rice and coconut mixture, almost like rice pudding. And only then did it rain. A highly successful afternoon.

A word on rain - Can it ever rain there! Hot and sunny one minute, and the next there's a rumbling of thunder, a lovely cool breeze springs up, a black cloud rolls in, and the heavens open. Rivers of water pour out of the sky. And then it becomes clear as to why you need to take boots to the jungle. The mud is something else.

And a word on insects. I've always felt pretty good about the apparent lack of scary bugs here, only some cockroaches, and ohter non-threatening creatures. It's another story in the jungle. HUGE spiders on the wall, and the biggest cockroach you ever saw. I learned to shine my flashlight around the walls of my room before I went to bed and tuck my bug net VERY tightly.
But I lived through it, and everything else more than made up for the wildlife.

onzole continued

So to continue the story...although I´m at an internet cafe using an uncooperative keyboard again, so we´ll see how it goes.

So after 2 1/2 hours we rounded a bend in the river and I got my first glimpse of the village of Santo Domingo, high up on the riverbank above us. As we pulled in onto the sand, the bank above us exploded into action, with children pouring out of everywhere and down to meet us. Talk about a welcome!
This village was settled originally by black slaves from Africa, brought over by the Spanish conquistadors. When they either escaped or were freed, they settled all along the river in that area of Ecuador, and the people in these communities look as though they just got off a ship from Africa. A mission in Quito has been involved with this village for some years, and that´s how our connection has come about. A group of Canadians built a big mission house there 3 years ago, and that´s where we stayed. Basic but adequate. No running water, no electricity in the whole village, including our house, so it was a little like camping. I shared a room with an Ecuadorian missionary who lives there full time, a lovely girl called Yadira. I had met her in other years at camp.
And so I found myself in a completely different world, a world that felt very far removed from any I have ever known. It felt so unreal to me, felt like I was watching a National Geographic program, but I wasn´t, I was actually in this world, living in it and sharing a bit of it with those people. A world of mostly small bamboo houses, more like shacks, most of them. The women´s lives seeem to revolve around a porch outside, where I saw a lot of daily life happening - washing dishes in large pans of river water, food preparation, bathing of small children, brushing of teeth, washing clothes (although that also happened down at the river´s edge, I found a couple of laundromats down there one day). Water is carried up a very steep bank from the river, and they also collect rain water for drinking. The only means of transportation into or out of the village is canoe, made from a huge log dug out and shaped by hand. I saw one being made over the course of 2 days, and talked to the guy making it. He would be taking it into the town of Borbon to sell, and will only get $100 for it. A little different to the boats Anthony makes, 2 years and a LOT more money!
A lot of the people earn money from little "fincas", farms that are all along the bank of the river. We visited one on Friday,and it´s not an easy way to farm, they are up those steep river banks. They grow cacao (for chocolate), plantain, bananas and some of them have cows as well.
The purpose of the trip for our group was a construction project. Originally to have been some work on the school, but it was closed in September due to a lack of funds needed to run it. More on that later. So instead the team was asked to expand the little church. Over 3 days it was extended out by 6 meters, and a second story added to one half to house a new library. Those guys worked at an incredible rate,and in some amazing heat a couple of days, and got the job done.
I wasn´t part of that work, and had gone at the last minute with no real job there for me, but I helped out in the kitchen with food preparation, and found myself a patient or 2. On Monday, a young guy came to me in the street - "Doctora" - and showed me his hand. He had cut it quite badly 8 days previous on a motor, and it had been sutured (I don´t know where), the stitches were still in, and it was very swollen, and hot. Oh great - infected. Now what do I do? So I told him to come and see me at the house, and I took out the stitches, cleaned it, and dressed it, pretty certain that it would open. Lacking any better ideas or antibiotics, I gave him a course of Cipro I had and told him to come back the next day. Sure enough it opened and was draining, so for the next few days I looked after it, and by Thursday I wasn´t feeling very good about it. But I had no other options, so kept up my program of cleaning and dressing it. And then when I looked at it on Friday for one last time before we left, WOW - it was dramatically improved. Wound closed, swelling down, and looking good. So I left feeling much happier. His name is Nixon, 17 years old,and he will be coming to camp at the end of March. A really nice young guy.
Enough for now, more another time.

see the link below for photos
http://picasaweb.google.com/heathermoore21/OnzoleJungleTrip

2 weeks later

Wow, those 2 weeks have gone fast. And now where to begin? They were 2 very full, very different weeks and last week was such an adventure in such another world that the memory of that first week of camp is already fading.
So first came camp, the week for the younger youth, the week that Forestview sponsored. It was a good week, our new camp was well broken-in last year, and this year all went smoothly. We had the most people there ever - 192, including kids, counselors, kitchen help and others. That was a lot of people to feed, and at this camp all food is prepared from scratch. No frozen shortcuts, no cans to open, no big ovens. And I'm talking some complicated and tedious preparation. Like french fries, from potatoes that you-know-who peeled, cut into fries with a blunt knife, and fried in a frying pan, batch by batch!! yes, we are talking time consuming. But we all just take it as part of life, and it all gets done. And we had some pretty fine meals. Shrimp ceviche one lunchtime, 15 pounds of fresh shrimp bought from the market in Playas, all cleaned and peeled and deveined (not by me - yuk!), and turned into wonderful ceviche. Yummy!
Only one major health issue all that week. Carlos (one of the older guys who I have known since the first year of camp) arrived at camp sick with a fever. I decided it was probably viral, there was nothing else to show for it, but by Thursday he was still sick. Seemed to get better during the day, but then spike a fever of 40 at night. Somebody raised the possibility of malaria, and it was a valid thought, so on Friday we took him into a little private clinic in Playas. Well, there was an education for me. It was so interesting for me to see the workings of a place like that, in some ways not unlike where I had been working in Burlington, but in most ways, poles apart. Anyway, $50, 3 hours, and many prescriptions later, we left, happy to know that it wasn't malaria, just an infection that he showed no signs of. Of the 6 prescriptions that he was given, I decreed that only one of them was necessary, the Cipro to treat the infection. The only fault I could find with the care he got was overkill on prescribing - a whole bunch of things that in my humble opinion,he didn't need.

In the meantime, during the week, I had got myself talked into joining a group that was going into the "jungle" last week. Not really the true jungle, but as near to it as I'm probably ever going to see.
So last Saturday, camp was done, the buses full of tired kids departed, and I with other staff from Bastion, got on a public bus and came back to Guayaquil, where I spent exactly 4 frantic hours doing email, reorganizing and repacking for the next trip.
We were a group of about 15 Canadians, and a few Ecuadorians, and we all got on a chartered bus at 7:30 and headed north up the coast to the province of Esmeraldas. That was a journey to forget! Many hours of jolting, jerking, swaying, stopping, bumping over untold numbers of speedbumps through every hamlet that we passed through, swerving around enormous potholes. Pouring rain for much of the night. Sleep was next to impossible, there was nowhere to put yourself, and I would just get sort of settled when the driver would slam on his brakes for something and I'd slide off the seat. But at least I wasn't carsick, like one poor girl the whole way there. (However, I made up for it on the return trip last night - oh boy!!)

But in due course we arrived at the landing spot, by the river Onzole, near the town of Borbon, and we loaded ourselves and all our belongings into 3 very long canoes with motors. And then began the part of the trip that more than made up for the misery on the bus. It took us more than 2 1/2 hours to travel up that river to our destination. And that trip was unforgettable, cruising along into an evermore unreal world, little bamboo houses on stilts by the river's edge. Some completely isolated, and others gathered together in little communities. We passed people going about their lives, washing clothes (and themselves) in the river, travelling in their own canoes, most of those much smaller than what we were in, and powered by a paddle, not a motor). People just hanging out by their homes, waving as we went by. Lush greenery of every kind all around us, coconut palms, trees full of orchids (not blooming) vines, flowering shrubs planted around the little houses. Once I saw a huge blue butterfly. And when we stopped to refill the gas tank, I could finally hear all the birds that were everywhere, but we couldn't hear above the motor. Tired as I was after the night before, I didn't even think of dropping off to sleep, my head never stopped swiveling about to see all the sights all the way there. I think it was just about the most fun I ever had!
(to be continued)