"The Rain"

One week ago, it rained hard for the first time in many months. We were ready for rain, looking forward to it, it's been getting hotter and hotter since December began, and so dry and dusty and brown. It needed to rain, it tried to for a few days, and finally last Friday night, the heavens opened. And so arrived "winter" here, the rainy season. It has rained every day since last Friday, and will keep it up for the next 3 or 4 months. Sometimes light rain, sometimes tropical downpours that have to be seen to be believed. Downpours that are like waterfalls from the sky, pouring down onto a city that can't handle that much water arriving at one time. So streets flood, houses flood, streets of Bastion that were dry, hard packed and dusty a week ago, become huge mud puddles.

I have to be honest - I haven't dealt with this first week of the rain very well. It brings major and minor inconveniences with it, and I'm a pampered Canadian, not used to having to deal with these things in my life. The first rain brings out the "grillos", rather large (big ones can be a good 2 inches long) members of the cricket family. I have no problem with crickets, I've always quite liked them, you can't beat the sound of crickets on an August evening. But these are crickets on a whole different scale, they're way bigger than Canadian crickets, they come into the house at night through every little opening they can find, fly up at you from nowhere, chew holes in your clothes, and if one gets into your bedroom, the noise will keep you awake all night. My cat has proven useless at dealing with them, she plays with them for a few minutes, then loses interest. So I think this is the real reason for wearing flip flops here, there's always a weapon ready, pull one off, one quick smack, and that's another one dispatched.

Then there's the river of rainwater that has been flowing through my kitchen from under the door. Someone cleverly designed the bit of concrete that's outside the back door to slope towards the house, so that really only leaves one place for the water to go. The other night there was a mighty thunderstorm, knocked out the power and torrents of rain came down. So I was out the back door, ankle deep, in the pitch dark with a flashlight clasped between my knees, trying to find somewhere else for all that water to go. Then there's the matter of laundry - it's so humid that it won't dry, by the time it does it has that nasty smell. Everything is damp, green slime is already growing in places, I think maybe even on me!! And it's suddenly much hotter, feels that way anyway with the humidity. And the mosquitoes are out in hordes..... It's all made me feel a tad cranky!

But I have absolutely no business complaining, because then I go to visit Bastion. And all the difficulties that I'm dealing with in my comparative luxury, are there in those homes too, only magnified and multiplied. It only took 2 rainfalls to turn the streets into mud, so the water that flows into those homes is muddy, and it comes in the many holes in their roofs, and between the slats of the bamboo walls. They can't get washing dry either, and they don't have an nice empty upstairs room to hang it in. School is almost finished, so that means little kids all underfoot inside tiny houses. Every errand becomes a huge challenge of negotiating your way through all that mud, trying to find the least mucky route. And that stuff is slippery! It's so easy to fall, and you don't really want to go down in that. Really you don't!

So I have nothing but respect for the people who live in Bastion and the many other squatter areas just like it. They don't lie down and give up, like I've been tempted to do, they just get on with it, and do what they have to do to keep on surviving, and I've even seen them smile, yes even laugh about

it. If they can, so can I!!

...and Happy New Year!!

.....and I thought Christmas in Ecuador was different - then along comes New Year's eve!! Now that was different! I had some inkling of what was to come, I was warned, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of the event. The custom here, all over Ecuador apparently, is to build or buy "viejo's" or old men, which are figures made of papier mache or old clothes stuffed with paper. Around Bastion, all the ones I saw were made. For a week or so before the end of the year, everywhere I went I saw these figures under construction. They are anywhere from little, 2 feet high or so, up to HUGE - where a ladder is required to build it. They represent the old year, and are burned at midnight. Firecrackers are added to the contents, to add to the interest.

if you need a head for your viejo, here's where you can buy one Janna, William & I at Marlene's, where we had our first dinner

So on the 31st, everybody is out and about, visiting and talking, and waiting for midnight. I went over to Bastion and did some visiting, had one full meal of chicken and rice at one home, then went on to another home, where I was given another full meal...of chicken and rice! I was there at that home at midnight, when it all broke loose. We went outside, and the scene was incredible - all the viejo's are put in piles all along the street and set on fire. The fireworks inside explode, everybody tosses in more explosives to make yet more noise. The house I was at was at the top of the hill in block 6, and we were on a balcony upstairs, so could see for miles, over Bastion and much of Guayaquil too. And it is going on everywhere!! Fires, fireworks, explosions...it has to be experienced to be fully grasped! And it went on for a very long time. I got home at 2am and there were still very big bangs around here. Feliz Ano, everybody!!!!

Merry Christmas...

Christmas has come and gone, I was away from home for it for the very first time ever in my life, and I survived it. It has indeed been strange, it never really felt like Christmas to me, but other than some homesickness in the week before, which is to be expected, it passed happily. I didn't miss a lot of what Christmas involves in Canada, but I surely did miss my family - especially my little grandaughter! But I am so very thankful for Skype, which allowed me to be in touch, and even to open stockings together with some of the family on Christmas morning! But I was busy, out and about, visiting and eating, and experiencing Christmas in another culture.

There were kids' events - one at camp, where there was a program put together by many of the young ones from Bastion for the children of the community around camp, a full house at camp, lots of local kids and parents

a christmas craft - sand dollar ornaments - sand dollars are prolific on that beach

and then the party for all our kids of "Esperanza de Bastion" on the last day of school. Papa Noel made an appearance at both of those events, and a lot of kids had a lot of fun, and Christmas was made a little more special for them than it might have otherwise been.

The big day for Ecuadorians is Christmas eve, that's when families get together, have their gifts, and a special dinner. I was invited to spend that time with the Lucas family in Block 10, along with other "orphaned" Canadians. It's a huge party all over Bastion, firecrackers going off everywhere, music coming out of speakers the size of a car, street parties. "Silent Night" it is not!! Everybody goes outside to countdown to midnight, then it's hugs and "feliz navidad" all 'round, then you go in and have your dinner. Bedtime was somewhere around 2am!

On Christmas day, we 3 Guayaquil Canadians, Janna, Luke and I headed off to Playas to stay with the Horst family, and I am now able to say that I was on the beach on Christmas Day (it's been a goal)!! And much of Boxing day too. And I have to say, if you can't be with your family at Christmas time, then digging your toes into the sand at the Pacific ocean is the next best thing!!! We had a great Christmas dinner and a group of Canadians living in Ecuador had a happy time together.