a busy week

It's been an eventful week. A group of Canadians (many from my home church, Forestview) has come, worked hard, seen and experienced and learned a lot, and gone. And I have a new "grandchild".

Better start at the beginning.

Last Saturday night I, along with a number of folks from Bastion, went off to the airport to meet 17 people arriving from Canada. I went to see all of them, the Bastion people were going for really only one person - Tim Horne, back for a visit after more than a year. For them, the rest of the group was incidental! Getting there was a long awaited adventure for me - I had my first ever ride in the back of a pickup truck, a popular method of transportation here. We were having trouble getting the right bus, and the next thing I knew, to my delight, they rounded up a "camionetta", in we all piled and off to the airport. It was great, I can`t tell you how much fun I had - I grinned foolishly the entire trip! And the view is so much better from back there!

When we got there we entertained ourselves while we waited with a massage chair, nobody can laugh at themselves and have fun like these Ecuadorian friends of mine!

After a long wait, with the Ecuadorians looking at every "gringo" that came out and asking me if it was anybody I knew, our group emerged, and finally, Tim, who was greeted with Antonietta blowing a whistle and all the Bastion people popping all the balloons we had blown up while we waited. It was showstopping!!

It was a good week for the group, only a week, didn't seem very long, but it was a full week. The group from Forestview were billeted in homes in Bastion, half in Block 6, where they spent Monday and Tuesday painting the outside of the school, and the other half in Block 10, where they worked on some improvements to the church. An amazing amount of work got done in those 2 days, and it was a great experience for them all to work alongside the Ecuadorians, live with them, and get to know the community a bit, and most important, make some new friends. Also part of the team were people who have been sponsoring kids at the school, and they were able to go and meet their child in his/her home. Then on Wednesday morning everybody headed to camp with the grade 5 and 6 classes from the school, and some of the graduates from last year. Everybody packed themselves, their belongings, and supplies onto 2 buses, and left - without me. I was supposed to go with them, but that's where the other bit of excitement comes in.

Mitzi, the pregnant girl I've been helping, finally went into labour during Tuesday night, and I got a phone call at 6:45 from her mother to say they were at the hospital. So I thought quickly, carted my bags down to be sent on the bus with everybody, then jumped into a taxi and went to the hospital. Where I found her mother waiting, outside the area where the operating and delivery rooms are. Nobody is allowed in, NOBODY!! I tried, but no way!! So we just had to wait, having no idea what was happening, until at 8, a nurse came to a window and called "Cobos family". Yes, that's us!! She wanted the baby clothes that you have to bring to the hospital with you. Does this mean we have a baby? "yes" Well what is it and is everything fine?? "a boy, and everything is fine". Goodness, just like decades ago. In due course she brought the baby to the window to show us briefly, and then told us that we would just have to wait for 2 hours before Mitzi and baby would be transferred out to a room. So then I just had time to jump into a taxi and get to the buses so I could tell Erika and Linder, Mitzi's siblings who were going to camp, that they had a new nephew. Then I went back to the hospital to wait to make sure all was indeed well, and took my camera so I could take a picture of the baby to show to his aunt and uncle. Had to wait a long time, much more than the 2 hours they had told us, but finally out they came, I got my pictures and got on my way to camp by public bus, got there mid-afternoon. (I'm calling this baby my other "grandchild" because one day when I was bemoaning the fact that I would be so far away when my first grandchild would be born in Canada, Mitzi said that I could be a grandma to her baby in the meantime.)

Camp was a happy time, 45 children and assorted leaders and cooks and Canadians. The days were relaxed, not nearly as scheduled as the camps in March, and everybody had fun. The Canadians did really well, getting involved with the kids and adults, forming bonds, some of which will last a long time.

It was cold at the coast, which I found very strange, the only feeling I've ever had out there is hot, hotter and occasionally less hot, but never cold. Two of the three days were gray and windy, and one afternoon I got so cold after our beach time that I went back and made myself some tea, just to warm up. Weird!! Admittedly, I was colder that all the other Canadians, I seem to have acclimatized to the heat somewhat. But we did have one glorious sunny day, it was a perfect beach afternoon, and everyone made the most of it and enjoyed it thoroughly. It still never fails to give me a charge to see those kids playing on that beach, being children and doing what children are supposed to do: digging in the sand, playing in the waves, catching little crabs, bigger kids and adults playing soccer. I love to see it. That camp is such a blessing for so many.

There were times of singing, workshop times, devotions, crafts that the Canadians brought, and times to just hang out. Lots of wonderful Ecuadorian food, including 2 meals that involved fresh chicken. VERY fresh chicken, straight from the hen house at the Horsts' house. These chickens arrived alive and squawking, and to my horror were dispatched right there in the kitchen sink, with a kitchen knife!!! Oh dear, I guess I'm still North American, I like my chicken to come dead and featherless and wrapped in plastic!!

We came back to Guayaquil yesterday, with a bug of some sort, which was passing through the group one by one. By this morning, 3 had had nasty bouts of sickness (I'll spare you the details!) and 2 others were feeling a little queasy. We saw them off and prayed that they wouldn't get any sicker or any more of them, because having what they had on a plane really would not be any fun at all!!

And now a new week starts tomorrow. I hardly even dare wonder what it will bring.....maybe a nice boring uneventful week? We'll see.

link to photos:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/heathermoore21/CanadianGroupJuly2008?authkey=l35fbLCovTE