waiting

April 4 is the date on the last post I wrote. Wow. Only 3 months have passed, but feels like a lifetime.

I'm back in Canada now, as anybody who knows me will know by now! And although I've been back for 2 months I'm feeling the need to do what should be (but might not be) a final installment on this blog, which was intended to be all about my life and ministry and adventures in the 3 years I spent in Ecuador. By rights this should have been written long before this, but.... well.... it wasn't. That last month there passed by in a blur of activity and heat and "lasts" (last time to do this or that, last time to go here or there) and goodbyes. And recovering from a crazy final couple of weeks of camp. My daughter Kathryn came down mid April to help me with the packing up of my life in Guayaquil and give me moral support as I said all those difficult goodbyes. And make sure I actually got on that plane! There were goodbye lunches, and get-togethers. I seemed to do much of my grieving over leaving in February for some reason, and by the time I got to the last weeks I had arrived at a very helpful anesthetized state, and tears were mostly left in storage until I got to the airport. The pace picked up dramatically in the last week before departure day, as I did the sorting and distributing of household stuff which was staying, and packing of stuff that was going. And just when it was all good and busy, first Janna, then Nikki came down with dengue fever. Really, I think it was a ploy to get me to stay - get sick and the nurse will change her mind about leaving. Just a theory. No, I'm kidding, of course, it was a fiendish little mosquito.
But somehow it all got done and on April 28 I boarded that plane and through tears said "goodbye for now" to the dirty hot crazy beloved city that was my home for 3 years.

And so back to Canada, to begin my "re-entry" to the North American way of life. Oh, but it was not to be. Within 24 hours of arriving I too got sick with dengue, and for the next 2 weeks was sicker than I've ever been in my life. If there's one way to avoid dealing with the adjustment, it's to retreat to the hospital in a morphine-induced fog! It's been a long gradual recovery, a lot of fatigue to deal with, but I think I'm finally over it, and in a way it's been good - it's been an enforced rest time, time to recover from the incredibly busy and stressful final weeks in Ecuador, and a chance to dwell in a little bubble of being neither here nor there. Also I've been able to spend wonderful time with my family, catching up on lost time. And especially precious times with my grandchildren, getting to know them in person. Grandma Ecuador is finally a person who can dispense hugs and kisses, instead of being a face on a computer screen.

However, this is definitely a strange time, between lives. I'm glad to be here, having a Canadian summer, seeing my family, catching up on crusty bread, and real cheese, and all kinds of other food that couldn't be found in Ecuador (well, I had to get weight back on me after being sick, you know!!). I'm loving the quiet, and safety, and the clean cool air. But I'm missing my life there, and my buddies and my community of Bastion Popular, and my grubby little cement house. (and my hammock!!) I go for walks here and there aren't any little kids to come running, hollering my name, to give and get big hugs. Nobody invites me in for large plates of rice and glasses of "cola". It's a funny place to be in, missing there when I'm here, missing here when I'm there. That's the problem with having one's heart divided between two lands.

I don't know what lies ahead, I don't have a job yet, and am not sure exactly what to pursue. There are days when I'm impatient to know what the next step is and to move forward, but the next step is not clear, and my sense is that God is telling me to wait. He will show me what direction to go in, in His time. And just as I know He led me to Ecuador, I know He led me back and has work for me to do here and will lead me forward when the time is right.

I truly feel that I was blessed to have been allowed this time in Ecuador, it was an incredible gift to me that I feel so privileged to have been given. It wasn't always easy, but it was a blessing. Every bit of it.

Wow, I just saw the date on the last post I did - 2 months ago. So much has gone on in those 2 months that it feels more like 6 months. So much that I hardly know where to begin. The big picture is that camp occupied much of those 2 months, the better part of 5 weeks over Feb and March. We had 1 camp for junior youth from Bastion and 1 for the youth from Arenal and Playas, our camp community. And 1 week each for children from both those places. Plus a retreat for senior youth and young leaders from Bastion. There were many memories created in each of those weeks, lots of happy times. I especially treasured those times this year as I was able to spend days with those I'll soon have to say goodbye to. That thought always lurking in the back of my head made the days somewhat bittersweet, but I'm so thankful for those weeks. So much has happened that I've had to go back over my (many) pictures to remind myself of some of the happy days.
One of the highlights for me was the 4 days we spent in Balsapamba, a little ways into the mountains, on the retreat for our older ones. It was a very different experience for me, my usual camp role was gone because we weren't in our own camp. No meals to help with, no dishwashing, minimal medical stuff. They even made me be on a team, although I was a somewhat halfhearted participant, not being much use with soccer or games that involve running or jumping, or much else really. But there I was, a member of the Azul team!

But what made this time so good for me was being there with so many who I have known since they were very young, they have grown up into young adults, many of whom are in leadership roles in the churches and camp. Those 4 days were an opportunity for them to relax, not have to be leaders, and hear some very valuable teaching on God's love, presented to them in a way they may not have heard before. And to laugh and have fun. Such fun, those adults all became kids again for those 4 days, and the simplest activity became a reason to laugh. It gave me such a charge to sit by and watch it all. Does anyone have a sense of humour like this bunch?? I doubt it. There was a pool there, and at first I thought - "A pool. Humph. We're used to the beach and the ocean, what fun is a little pool?" Well, I'm here to tell you that this gang had more fun in and around that pool that I ever dreamed possible. I sat on my perch on a rock beside that pool and laughed more than I have in a long time.

We went for a hike one afternoon, and ended up at the bottom of a waterfall. Well, what are you going to do? Go into that freezing water, of course. God provided it as a reason for more fun, so let's go!

So as I take this chance to look back beyond the events of the last few stressful weeks, and remember that 4 days, I'm very thankful I was able to be there for them.

The final 2 weeks of camp were for the children, and as always it gave me such joy to see those kids at camp, at the beach. There was a lot going on in those weeks, but that's another post! As I look back over these 2 months, I see how God blessed us and cared for us, in so many ways.

Christmas in Hope of Bastion school

I'm backtracking a bit, going back to Christmas, but I just wanted to share an aspect of the celebrations here that so many Canadians (and others) are a part of.

Every year, on the last day of school before Christmas, there is a party for everyone. And it is a party! It starts off with a program in the gym, where the kids all sit patiently, or not, waiting for the main event. Which is where they go to their classes and out comes the food - chicken,  rice, potatoes (as it's Christmas),  pop, cake. Yes, it's a little overbalanced by the carbohydrates, thus is life here. But of course, what they're really waiting for is Santa - "Papa Noel". And in due course, Felipe gets his gear on, and makes his way from class to class carrying his bag of presents. It's so much fun to watch the kids' faces as he appears and see the little ones inspecting him from various angles and deciding that it's Felipe. Really, the outfit, especially the beard, has seen better days and it doesn't require much investigating to figure it out! Then the kids are called up one by one and given their gift. The gifts are made possible by the sponsors, who send extra funds each year and Nikki goes out on a very big shopping trip! The presents are carefully chosen for each class, and may very well be the only gift that some kids receive at Christmas. Some kids don't have sponsors, but of course still get a gift.

But there is something that I've noticed and has really struck me. Almost better than the gift is the letter that comes from their sponsor (if they have one, and if the sponsor sends a letter). MANY of the kids will receive their bag and before even looking at the gift will pull out the envelope from the sponsor, and read the letter and look at any photos that may be enclosed. The photos will be passed around to their friends to see, and the letter painstakingly read. If they're not good readers yet, they'll ask me to read it to them. They'll spend ages looking at the photos that come, maybe of the sponsor, of the sponsor's family, of Canada.

Then it's all very carefully folded back up and put in the envelope to take home. This communication from their sponsor, who in most cases is someone they've never met and most likely never will, is SO important. I've been to homes where every letter and every photo that has ever come is carefully stashed, and they'll pull out the box or envelope or album and show them to me. They are treasured possessions, and will last long after the gift has been lost or broken or used up.

It's been a weird week.
3 years ago, I bought my first ever one way ticket. Toronto to Guayaquil, Feb 6, 2008. (Although due to snowstorms and volcanos, I didn't actually set foot in Ecuador until Feb 8, but that story has already been told!) This week I bought another one way ticket, Guayaquil to Toronto, April 28, 2011. And although this has been talked about, prayed about, and been in my thoughts for many months, buying that ticket and booking that flight made it suddenly real. My time in Ecuador is coming to an end. And I can hardly believe it. Both that I've been here 3 years, and that it's over. When I came I was committed to no less than 1 year, but with no real idea as to how long I would be here. I always said that God would make it clear to me when it was time to return to Canada. And over the last year, that's what He has been doing - putting the idea in my head, giving me little nudges, and eventually making it clear. It's time to go back. 

I have very mixed feelings about it all, it's all rather bittersweet. I'm headed home to my family, including 2 precious grandchildren who mostly know me as a face on the computer screen. Home to the familiar, or at least what used to be familiar, after 3 years it all seems a lot less so. Home to what looks to me like a quiet, clean, orderly, and COOL world, where I don't have to struggle to understand and make myself understood. But I'll be leaving so much behind too. A lot of frustrations, life in South America seems to be full of them. The heat, the noise, the chaos, the dirt. And.... many wonderful friends, of all ages, who tell me that they're my family too. Established relationships that have deepened over the time I've been living here, and new ones with people I didn't know before I came to stay. People I've laughed with - so many good laughs! And cried with too. People I've talked to, and listened to. I've seen kids in our school growing up, kids change a lot in 3 years. And it's been such a privilege to be here to see the 2 kids I've sponsored since kindergarten growing up. Ronald, who graduated to high school 2 years ago, and Genesis who will graduate this week at the top of her class, and is becoming a fine young lady. And I'll be leaving behind the best huggers on the planet. When I get back to Burlington, who's going to come running as I walk through the streets - "Heather" ('Jeder' with the unique way of saying that!) and throw little arms around me?! And who is going to care for my patients? Well, the answer to that one is God, who loves those people better than I ever could, and will look after them in ways that I can't imagine.

I am headed back to a life filled with unknowns. A slightly scary prospect. But 3 years ago I arrived here to a life that was also filled with many many unknowns, at the direction of a God who I know loves me, and will never leave me, nor did He. And that same God is taking me back to this next phase of life, and I know I can trust Him.  And my prayer is that He will use me in a special way in the 3 months that I have left in this wonderful little country called Ecuador.      

pavement & needles

 In October I went home, to my other home, Canada, for 1 month. Just 1 month, only 4 weeks, not very long at all (sure went fast from my end!!). But when I came back to Guayaquil, and ventured forth across the dreaded highway to Bastion, I almost had to pinch myself and

double check where I was. Because this didn't look like the Bastion that

I've known for so many years, not at all. That Bastion had mud streets, lumpy, bumpy and pot-holed. Dry and dusty for half the year, and flowing with mud and giant bottomless

puddles in the rainy season. Always a challenge to negotiate my way about, never able to raise my eyes and look around me for more than a few seconds at a time, lest I fall over or into something, or step on any number of undesirables. But all has changed, or is still changing. Now the streets are being paved, and not just paved, but with sidewalks too!! I can hardly believe it, it looks so different now, all neat and tidy, nice smooth streets, much cleaner. As I walk around I keep losing my bearings, that's how much it's changed. And there are new sewer pipes installed. All going to make living in that community so much better for everyone. Now we're all saying - Bring on the winter, the rainy season!!! Oh, it's going to be so nice.

the street with the school

We've been travelling these new lovely streets recently, the kindergarten class has been doing its annual home visits. The entire class, along with the teacher and helpers, all go out and visit the home of each child in the class. We trundle along with the kids holding onto a rope and the adults herding them along and trying to keep them on course. And one by one we visit their homes. In we all go, and the child has to introduce the family members who are on hand, then they all tour the home, see the kitchen, where the child's eating habits are questioned and everyone applauds if we find out they eat vegetables, then to where they sleep, where we find out if the child keeps their bed and (few) toys tidy. Then most moms serve a snack to us all. Last week we visited 6 or 7 houses one morning, and got back to the school full of assorted crackers and cookies, jello, yogurt, pop and one clever mom served us all big wedges of papaya, a nice nutritious snack (but NOT my favourite tropical fruit). I don't think much lunch was eaten that day.

The living conditions differ a lot between the various houses. Some of the homes clearly  represent a huge struggle for survival, while others are in better condition and the families evidently are doing reasonably well. 


Yesterday when I arrived at the school, a Ministry of Health team was there, vaccinating some classes. I was so happy to see them and find out that they're doing this - not waiting for parents to bring kids to them for immunizations, but coming to where the kids are. It was strange for us Canadians to see, no consent forms, no info for the parents. It just gets done! I joined the fray when they were about to do the grade 1 class, and it was in an absolute uproar. A nurse and doctor were sitting at the desk calmly drawing up all the syringes, and the kids were sitting watching, a number of them wailing and sobbing, and I found 5 of them hiding under desks at the back of the class. So we got them all out in the hallway, and brought them in one by one, and I held the kids in good big "hugs" while the job was done. I confess it was just a little funny to watch the poor little things come in, some of them crying piteously "I don't want to, I don't want to", and others just swaggered in, no big deal at all. I happened to have a camera with me that day, so we got a few pictures. We felt as though we'd been on the battlefield by the time we were done. But I'm very happy to have these kids immunized.

( I have never had so much trouble laying out a page of this blog before! I'm not happy with the way it is, but I've spent too many frustrating hours on it, and this is the best I could do. They've changed something!!!)



lives in Bastion

I'm just in from some visits around Bastion this morning. I've been doing quite a bit of visiting in the last few days, spending time with people before I head to Canada next week. And in these visits, sitting and talking, I've had it brought home to me all over again just how tough these peoples' lives are here. Home after home, friend after friend, story after story, each and every one pulling at my heart a little more. Life here in Bastion is not just not easy, it is so difficult, beyond difficult, for many it must feel completely impossible. And it didn't just get hard in the last week or month, a little problem that came along and pretty soon things will get better. These are lives that have been hard for years, and will stay that way, there is no corner to turn and find a marvellous easy life wating.

There are my friends in block 10. Invited me to lunch on Sunday, and pulled out all the stops and served me a wonderful meal, which I enjoyed, all the while feeling so guilty because I know there are days when they can't put 3 basic meals on the table for their family. He's been trying to earn a living collecting recyclables from the garbage that others put out. That involves pushing a big old heavy trike around the city picking through piles of garbage to find the stuff that he can sell for a pittance. Never a great way to try to feed your family. But now he's getting too, umm.....mature (I have to be careful here, he's younger than me and I'm not ready to call myself old!) to be out there doing that all day in the heat. He's been unwell for some months, and I finally got him to a good doctor who told him he just can't do that work anymore. Ok, fine. So now what? His wife is finishing her first year of university, studying to be a teacher, in the hopes of being able to get a job eventually. But that's going to take 4 more years. What happens in the meantime? They have kids in school, there are always costs involved. And how do they eat?

There's a family in block 6. There is no husband or father, hasn't been for many years. There isn't anyone earning any money in that house at all at the moment. 2 of the kids have have been through our Hope of Bastion school, now in high school, and one older daughter with a 2 year old. She sometimes gets work in a shrimp processing plant nearby, but gets laid off frequently. And when she is working she gets paid an absolutely ridiculous pittance for beheading and peeling a pound of shrimp. She could work all day doing that and earn $3 or $4.

Then there's my dear friend, her life has been a never-ending series of griefs. I stopped in there for a few minutes, but we began to talk and then the floodgates opened and she told me part, just part, of the last 10 years' worth. She is a single mother too, 5 kids at home. She has struggled away faithfully doing a fabulous job of rasing her kids alone, finding ways to make ends meet. She has a degenerative kidney disease that we are managing, her meds alone cost over $400 a month. Her latest disaster is that one corner of her bamboo house has rotted and is collapsing. Well, just fix it then. Even if there was lots of money, it's not that simple. There's more to the housing story, that's what came out today. She lives behind her sister's house, with her wall maybe 4 feet away from the back wall of the other house. And her sister has decided that she wants to enlarge her house, build onto the back of it. So, too bad about my friend, the only solution offered is to knock down the front of her place and live in the back part to make way for the addition. Which would reduce her living space by half for her family of 6, including 4 teenage boys. Oh, and the corner that is falling - you have to pass through it to get to the "bathroom". So the kids are skinny so they're doing that with great care. So I asked what my friend is doing about facilities. Oh she's going off up the road to someone's house. Oh, and.... you can hardly make your way along her street right now, it's all dug up, they're putting in sewers and finally fixing things up in Bastion, but at the moment that street is a disaster. As I left she hugged me and thanked me for listening, and apologized for serving me a delicious bowl of soup and rice.

And the red tape and paperwork and level of dificulty in every aspect of life here make for other problems. I was in another home this week (another meal served to me), seems like a nice stable little family. There is a father present, and he has a job. Sometimes. He works in construction which is quite different here to what it is in Canada. Here that usually means getting taken on for little jobs here and there. So he's often out of work. There's a 19 year old son, he's finished high school, but can't get a job because of some long involved delay with getting his papers from his school. And without those he can't work. 

I could go on. And on. I'm absolutely reeling today with it all. Why is it bothering me so much now all of a sudden? I think I must have got used to things to some degree and been floating above it, relatively unaffected. I don't want to think of myself as hardened. I guess so much time in the last few days spent listening and observing has re-opened my eyes. And now I'm getting ready to go home to Canada for a month. To a rather different world. The homes I've been in here are furnished with the most basic of items, sometimes not even those, and what they do have are things that by the standards of the world I'm going to are fit only for the dump. How can I ever reconcile what I will find there with the realities I know here?

Back in July (yes I've fallen a little behind on this blog), I was invited to go to a track and field event that a bunch of the kids in our Hope of Bastion school were a part of. I was asked to go just in case there were any accidents or injuries, being as how I'm the school nurse! So I packed a bag of first aid things that I really hoped would be unnecessary, and climbed on the bus with about 25 kids and some of their parents, and we spent 2 long mornings at the stadium here in Guayaquil, perched on cement bleachers, watching to see how our kids would do. And we saw! And were proud!
They were competing in various track and field events, long jump, a version of shot put, but mostly running. And can our kids run! They were up against other schools in the city, including some expensive private schools and our Hope of Bastion children held their own, and came home with their fair share of medals. It was interesting for me to sit and observe the differences in the kids of these schools, those from the obvious "poor" schools, and those from the wealthy ones. There is a definite and obvious class system here still, it was easy to distinguish between the rich and poor. The parents from the weathier schools were sitting around using Blackberries, and were dressed rather differently to our parents. The kids had spiffy uniforms and, this to me was the biggest deal - good running shoes. Our kids had their little school t-shirts the first day, and the second day wore Tim Horton's shirts that had come from someone in Canada. And shorts that had also been a donation from Canada. But didn't necessarily fit all that well! And their shoes - I felt badly when I saw what all but one were wearing for shoes. You can buy very cheap shoes here, we used to call them $3 shoes, they may have gone up to $4 by now. Canvas and a very thin slice of rubber for the soles, absolutely no support, or cushioning, or built in bounce. I saw huge holes in one little guy's, all kinds of toes poking out! But they took themselves, with their inadequate shoes, out onto the track and showed us all that they knew how to run! And they did so well, we came home with 7 medals in all, a pretty good showing for kids from a little school in a squatter area. I wonder what they could do with proper sports shoes!

And the other good news - my bag of supplies wasn't needed - there were no injuries.

The last month seem to have passed in a blur of activity. It has been a very full few weeks.

An update on my cataract patient. We did go back to the hospital in Milagro on the Monday, and there was power, and she had her surgery. And it seems to have been successful, she has some lingering cloudiness which will be dealt with by laser next week. It means yet another jaunt to Milagro, but the outlook seems good for greatly improved vision for her.

And an update on another patient who I was also feeling a bit discouraged over. My old friend Julian. I first met him soon after I arrived here 2 1/2 years ago. He had a big leg ulcer that he'd had for a very long time. With daily visits for 3 months, it finally closed. Then when I got back from Canada last year, there he was with another smaller one, which proved to be remarkably stubborn, just didn't want to heal, but we won in the end, and got it closed. Then, wouldn't you know it, a couple of months ago, I discovered he had 2 more new ones!! So, there we were back to the same old routine, but they've been very nasty ones, and after caring for them every day for 3 or 4 weeks, we just didn't seem to be making any progress. I had to put in an SOS request to Janna's mom, who is a wound care nurse in Canada, to send me more supplies that I can't get here. But I'm so pleased to report that this week, all of a sudden, he's beginnning to heal. I can see it progressing each visit.

I've had a small army of people praying for these 2 patients of mine, and I feel so encouraged to see the results.

The big excitement of the last month was the visit of my brother Don and his friend Caleb. They were here for just one week, but what a week it was! We packed a lot of activity into that week, I look back at the time now, and wonder if it was all a dream! We saw the required sights of most of downtown Guayaquil - the Malecon, Las Penas, the artisan market, the iguana park, the Central market, had a great $2 Ecuadorian "almuerzo" or lunch. And all that was on the first day! We spent time in Bastion, toured the school, visited my patients' homes, were fed by my faithful friends whose mission it is to fatten me up. I lost the 2 men one morning, they decided to go exploring Bastion on their own while I was doing a dressing, and got so far away that I began to worry. It's not the best idea for 2 prosperous looking gringos to go wandering these areas alone! But we found them, and all was well.

One day we visited camp, out in Playas, so they could see the new house that was built last year and has been named "Casa Heather Berry", in memory of Don's wife. When she passed away last year memorial funds in her name went into that house, which houses the infirmary, the cooks' quarters and the tuck shop, all downstairs, and a guest house upstairs.

We did all that in just 3 days, and then.....we set out on an adventure - to the Amazonian rainforest. What a trip that was. We flew to Quito, then to the town of Coca, where we were met and taken down the Napo River by motorized canoe. Then a 1/2 hour walk through the forest, to another landing, where we were paddled in little canoes across a beautiful peaceful little lake to our final stop, Sacha Lodge, where we spent the next couple of days soaking up the sights,sounds and smells of the rainforest. It was a wonderful place, and a fabulous time. We were assigned a couple of guides, and taken out on trails through the forest and on canoe rides up silent little creeks, where we saw all kinds of fascinating things - monkeys, frogs, spiders, a boa (!) and many exotic birds. And such plant life! On the property is a "canopy walk", 3 towers that rise up above the forest, joined by suspension walkways. You climb up many stairs, and when you arrive at the top, you're above the canopy and can see way across the jungle, the sea of green just stretches out in every direction as far as you can see. What a place and what an experience. It was the one big area of Ecuador that I had never visited and always hoped I'd be able to some day. Never thought I'd get to do it in such style!

We came back to Guayaquil via Quito and were able to spend a few hours there, we went to the Old Town, the historic part of the city, and once again managed to fit rather a lot into a short time. But it was fun and they got to see a city that is quite different to Guayaquil.

And then they were gone, and life returned to normal, or what passes as normal! This house has been strangely quiet since they left.....

You know how some days just don't seem to work? The days where it seems it might have been better to have just stayed in bed? Today felt like one of those days.

I had to make a return trip to Milagro, where I've gone a few times with some patients who need eye care. I had a hugely successful day there back in October, and blogged about it. But 3 weeks ago I took a lady who needed cataract surgery, and it was done, but at the time it looked iffy as to whether or not it would be successful. It turned out to have been a traumatic cataract, as a result of a blow to the eye years ago, from an abusive husband. The damage from that blow has been lurking all these years, and has meant that the eye wouldn't support the new lens implant, and it has moved out of position. So we had to go back for a second surgery today, using a different technique. So all the arrangements were made.

It was bad from the outset, my alarm clock somehow got moved ahead by an hour, which meant I got up at 4:30, instead of 5:30. 4:30!! I thought it seemed rather dark, and the cat wasn't waiting outside my door like he usually is, but by the time it all came clear it was too late to go back to bed. Oh well, extra time, doesn't hurt.

Then off out to meet my patient and her daughter in Bastion, and make the trek - get a taxi to the bus terminal, get tickets for the bus, find the bus, get to the city of Milagro, get a taxi to the hospital, and....we got there early. So, find seats, and wait. And wait. And watch staff arriving and trying to punch in on the time clock. Not working. Little by little it began to dawn on us that a number of things weren't lookng right. Ah I see the problem - no power. Oh great! But nobody seems concerned, and we do lose power here fairly often. But finally at 9:15 someone thought to call the electricity company, and guess what - it was a transformer - no power for the foreseeable future. Oh really excellent!! Sorry folks, no light, no doctor, no operations, come back on Monday. NNOOO!!!!!!! I don't want to come back on Monday, I came all the way here, and I'm here now. Please don't make me go home. But what are you going to do, I'm a middle aged senora, and a foreigner, and I just can't throw myself to the floor in a tantrum, even though it's what I most wanted to do.
So, out we went, and reversed the whole process, and came home. And Monday we get to do it all over again!!

Life in Ecuador. Always some adventure lurking around the corner.

I have to add, along with the inconvenience that we all had to deal with, was the disappointment of my patient. She's very nervous about this surgery (can't say as I blame her) and had herself worked up to it, and now she has to live through a weekend before we do it. Please pray that this will be a success this time.

There was a positive to the day, however - we got a clinic scheduled for July, when a team from the hospital there will come with their equipment to Bastion and see anyone with eye problems. The hospital is an MMI (Medical Ministries International) project, and this is part of what they do to serve the poor of Ecuador. So it wasn't all for nought!

another trip up the river

I'm just back from 11 days away (only 11 days? felt like much longer). This was a trip back to the communities up the Onzole river, this time with a "team" and the purpose was to hold medical clinics. A group came from Canada and together with some of us from Guayaquil and Playas, we were 16 or so - 4 nurses, 1 doctor, some translators, and assorted helpers and administrators. Most of us met up in Quito on Tuesday, and at 11:30 that night all climbed into a van, with every nook and cranny filled with suitcases and bags full of medical supplies, and headed off into the night. 6 bumpy, uncomfortable, carsick (not me - I took 2 gravol and never felt a thing!) hours later, arrived at the edge of the river to wait for the canoes that would take us into the interior to the riverside community of Santo Domingo. That part of the trip was relatively quick this time, the water was high thanks to lots of rain, so we made it in about 3 hours. Last time I was there in December the river was so low it took us 5 hours!

We had a couple of days to put in before the clinics could get underway, we arrived just as the entire community went into party mode, it was a huge fiesta to celebrate the founding of the town. It is a very big deal. Parades, pageants, soccer games, fireworks, and.....music. Or should I say MUSIC. Oh my. 2 years ago when I visited for the first time there was no electricity. And it was peaceful, when night fell, we lit candles and listened to the quiet. Just the many jungle insects to be heard. And you could hang out the window and see thousands of stars and almost as many fireflies. But then electricity came in, and changed everything. Now there are speakers as big as your car, and they were blasting at top volume, all day, and all night. ALL night. We could hear that music everywhere we went. Even way downriver, we went in the canoe one afternoon to visit the "finca" (kind of a farm) of a man from the village, and climbed up the hill where we got a wonderful view, and heard....yes, there it was - the music from Santo Domingo!! Ah yes, Latin America. It carried on pretty much ceaselessly until Monday morning. The North Americans got just a little tetchy!

But it was sort of fun to hang out with the people and be a part of the celebrations, even if our hearts weren't in it quite like theirs were.

We finally got our clinics underway on Saturday morning, packed ourselves and some supplies into the canoe and went to spend the day in the village of Colón, 20 minutes upriver. In a rather small cement building we set up a registration area, a preliminary assessment room, another assessment room, and a pharmacy. And that day were able to see about 60 or 70 people, in a clinic which by the end of the afternoon felt very much like a sauna. But by the time we left, it was raining, a torrential tropical downpour, a specialty in that part of Ecuador. We had to drag all our stuff down the 144 stairs on that hill, load the canoe, and put our wet miserable selves into the canoe and head for home in the dark. But, we did cool off.

The next day we went to church in Santo Domingo, then straight off to Zancudo, 20 minutes downriver, and set up in the school, where we had more space, and more air, and it all went much more smoothly.

I have a sight stashed in my memory from the trip home that evening. Once again we set off after dark, but this time it wasn't raining so I didn't have my head down and could see something special. And all the way along, in the trees beside the river, the whole way home, there were fireflies. Dozens of them, flashing high in the trees and low near us. Such a magical sight,I'll always carry the memory of those little twinkling lights along the river.

The following 3 days were spent in Santo Domingo, holding clinics in the school there. We were able to see more than 100 people, men, women, children, babies, elderly folks who had no idea eactly how old they were (not something they ever felt the need to keep track of!). Part of what we did was annual assessments on all the Compassion sponsored kids in the schools, they were very time consuming, but we were happy to see that these kids are basically quite healhy. We saw many assorted skin infections, most kids and adults had parasitic infections, there were pregnant 15 year olds, people with problems stemming from old serious injuries that were never treated properly or sometimes not at all. Cataracts, sore backs, headaches, the list goes on. I saw so many people with health problems related to issues that we almost never saw in North Burlington Medical Centre! Machete wounds - never. Sore backs from carrying water up a steep riverbank to your home, from bending over doing your laundry in the river, wielding a machete on your finca every day. And the skin and parasite infections. It's a very different world there, even to the world I live in here in Guayaquil, a world apart from southern Ontario. We were able to help many, some we had to say, Sorry, I'm afraid there's nothing we can do to help. We worked from 8am until dark on our last day there, we didn't want to have to turn anyone away who needed attention. And everyone was seen, and treated as best we could with limited facilities.

I had what for me was a bit of a disaster, on my second day there my good camera broke, for no good reason. Thankfully I had put in my little pocket one, so I had that, but had to use it very sparingly, as it charges on the computer. None of those in those villages. But I was able to get a reasonable number of photos. I've posted them, link below:

http://picasaweb.google.ca/heathermoore21/OnzoleClinics?authkey=Gv1sRgCPvJ58uxxJmdbg&feat=directlink

Well, the "crazy season" is over, and did it ever go fast! Can't believe Feb and March have come and gone already, with all that those months bring to us here. 2 weeks of camp for youth in February, and 2 more in March, for children ages 8 to 11, or so. Those weeks were wonderful too. The time with the children is so special, they are so much fun to spend a week with - so affectionate, love getting hugs (so do I!), and they have so much fun - singing their hearts out, playing, digging on the beach, jumping in the waves. And so good too to see the counsellors, our youth, talking to them about Jesus, and doing all they can to give those kids a good experience at camp. The first of those weeks was for the kids in the neighbourhood of our camp, and as happened last year, up until just before camp started there were only a handful of kids registered to come. But The Lord was faithful again and brought us 80 kids, some had been last year, but it was the first time for many. And on the last night we invited the parents to come for a snack (the empanadas) and a program, including a simple presentation of the gospel. Such an important outreach to that community.

Mid-week the first week I made the trip back into Guayaquil, to the airport again, this time to meet my sister, who came for a month. We headed straight back out to camp the next morning, after a rather short night, and Alison got to know our camp. She had planned on being in the kitchen helping with the making of meals, but for the second week our cook had sort of forgotten who she had invited to come and help, and kept on asking ladies, and by the time they all arrived on the Sunday nght before the second week of camp, there was quite a crowd of them! That didn't leave much room for 2 gringas, so we helped by keeping out of the way, although we did get pressed into service a couple of times to help with making many empanadas. Alison impressed the socks off all the ladies with her quick learning of the technique, and then doing it better than anyone else!

Most of my patients in those weeks were counsellors and visiting Canadians, with assorted ailments. But I did have a girl with a gash in the chin from encountering something big in the ocean, which in an ideal world would have been stitched. But I had remembered to take some wound glue with me, and this was the perfect time to use it. And if I say so myself, the end result is rather good - a nice neat little scar.

Then there was the little girl with a nasty "nacido" - an old fashioned boil, over her eyebrow. It opened and drained, and healed up, but in the meantime there was another huge one brewing on her collarbone. Again, in an ideal world, a doctor would have incised and drained it, but camp isn't the ideal world, and I'm no doctor and wasn't about to get into that! So I had to talk her into hot compresses, which didn't make me popular at all, and sure enough, in due course, it looked after itself. Very nasty, and I have yet to figure out why there are so many of these here, in small children. They're not at all uncommon.

And my favourite patient of that week, a little fellow with a cut on his toe, which I fixed up for him, and while I was doing it, he watched intently and then said quietly to a bystander in an approving voice - "She's a very good nurse". And he was my new best friend after that. I love those moments. On the last evening of camp he came to find me, all spiffed up, and took my hand and pressed a shell into it and folded my fingers over it, as though he was slipping me a $20. And that shell is worth way more to me that any number of $20's.

After camp was all done we had a week in Guayaquil to rest abit and catch up on things at home, and then we headed off to the mountains for a week. To Quito first to get a bus to Mindo, a cloudforest area 2 hours out of Quito. And there we spent 4 wonderful days, relaxing, resting, hiking, birdwatching, and - wait for it - ziplining!! Yes, we did, twice, and had a ball! It rained much of those days, but we learned that we had to just get out there and do things anyway, and don't worry about getting wet. And get wet we did, to the skin, but we did and saw lots, and had a great time. Our hotel was 5 km out of town, which made it harder for getting anywhere, but was also good in that it forced us into just taking it easy, and I sat and read, and had naps, and loved the absolute peace and quiet - nothing to hear but a rushing river and birds.

yes that's me cruising through the cloud forest!

Then to Quito for 2 days to get to know that city a bit, and it was beautiful weather there, sunny, 25 degrees, dry - absolute heaven after these months in the city I call home!

Now Alison has gone home, and the kids start back to school on Monday, and that school has been a flurry of activity all week, as the everyone prepares for the new school year. And I'm back to "normal" life, whatever that means here!! I've been back to hospital and doctor visits, some old problems, some new problems. Always problems. More on those next time.

So as I look back over the last 2 months, I give thanks for many blessings, so many gifts from God. 4 weeks of camp, supported by churches from North America, kids protected from serious illness or injury, times of spiritual growth for campers and counsellors. And family members here to spend time with me, and the chance to see another part of this beautiful little country, safety in all of our travels, and a good time spent together. So many blessings.

Camp 2010

So, a month ago we were gearing up for camp season, and now here we are already halfway through it. In February there were 2 weeks of back to back camps, both for youth, and on Monday we start 2 more weeks for children.

In spite of heading into those first 2 weeks with everyone feeling less than ready, we all must have been more ready than we thought, because it all went very well, they were 2 good sessions, both different from each other, both good.

The first week was for senior youth, mostly from Bastion, and numbers were down this year, due to a few factors. But that made for a more manageable group in many ways, and it was a good time. All the usual activities - groups, soccer games, crazy fun games, beach time, devotions with the counsellors. There were teaching times in the morning and evening, with a speaker who was so good, talked about who Jesus really was and is, as opposed to the image many have grown up with. The kids listened to him, he speaks from his heart.

We had a walk along the beach one morning, teams were to gather up any unusual finds and when we got back the collections would be judged, see who managed to find the weirdest thing on the beach. We came back with quite a assortment of oddities! Then later that day on the beach, there were 2 more contests (it's all about competition here!), one to get as many team members buried in the sand as possible in a given time, and then the other for each team to build an amazing sand castle. It just does my heart so much good to see these kids, ALL of them, even the big ones who consider themselves the tough guys off the streets of Bastion, down on their hands and knees earnestly working on their part of the sand castle, getting it just right, adding a flower here, a shell there. And then they're so proud of the finished product they need me to take a picture of them in the middle of it.

The second week was livelier, we had 120 or so younger kids, junior youth, and the beginning of the week coincided with the national holiday called Carnival. Which, aside from being a 4 day weekend, means that you are completely free to throw water at anybody at all, anywhere, anytime. You can be walking down the street in Guayaquil, and have a hose turned on you, or a bucket of water thrown at you, or be shot at by a water gun. And consider yourself fortunate that's all it is, because it's also ok to throw other stuff - dirty water, paint, flour followed by water, and it gets worse. So being away at camp seems like a good plan for those days, safer somehow! Not this year. All was calm until Tuesday, still Carnaval, and then it started during dishwashing after lunch. A little water was splashed, then more, then dishpans full, then the hose, then paint was applied to hands to be rubbed into unsuspecting faces. It had rained, leaving a lovely mud puddle, an excellent place to roll someone in. It even extended to the games, the teams had to get as much paint rubbed into each other's faces as possible, they were merciless. Nobody was immune. Except - ME! My advanced years bought me some respect, and also any time anyone looked like they were heading my way with paint, I reminded them that IF they got sick during the week, it was me they'd be needing! Worked every time. I did get hosed once, but water I could deal with, especially in this heat!

Each week there was a campfire time, when kids are invited to share what's been happening through the week, and at each one it was evident that God had been working in hearts. There were testimonies as to what God had done, and commitments made to follow Jesus, and tears were shed. As always, it seems so easy when they're away from the world, in the special world that camp is - these kids face huge challenges when they return to the real world of Bastion, and it is our challenge to be able to offer the support and discipling that they need, and also to offer a warm, accepting, loving church community for them to be part of.

The weeks were without major medical issues, thankfully. We had a couple of viruses do the rounds, but everyone survived those, lots of tylenol was doled out. There were 2 stingray stings in one day, but now I'm an expert in dealing with those. The kids look at me as if I'm crazy when I tell them they have to put the foot into a bucket of very hot water, and I know they have serious doubts about this gringa nurse's methods. But in 1/2 an hour, they've changed their minds, and off they go, happy and painfree.

I was delighted to go back into Guayaquil in the middle of the first week to pick up my niece from the airport, and she spent the rest of that week and all of the next week with me at camp. It was her first time here, and she jumped right in, learning Spanish, and getting into the spirit of things, and adjusting to Ecuadorian ways. It was great to have her here, and be able to show her a little of my life here, and see her make friends with my friends. And now I'm looking forward to my sister arriving in just a few days. She'll be here for 4 weeks, she'll be at camp for the first week and a half, and then we'll spend time here in Guayaquil, and we're hoping to get away for a few days somewhere, too. To the mountains, to find some coolness - the heat and humidity here on the coast have been unrelenting the last few weeks.

Well, it's been awhile since I updated. I guess it's been a challenging time for me, for a number of reasons. I don't plan to inflict all the details on anybody who is still reading this blog. Suffice it to say that homesickness featured around Christmas time, plus the seemingly endless frustrations in trying to do what I do here, and in trying to do almost anything sometimes. Lineups, delays, patients not following directions, the many trips it has taken me to simply renew my passport and then transfer the visa to the new passport. So far that little project has meant 10 trips, 4 to the Canadian consulate, and 6 to the Ecuadorian gov't. department to do the visa. And it's not done yet. And all is not happiness and joy in the 2 churches that I'm involved with and that is hard to see. And then on top of it all. it's been SO HOT!!!!

So after a particularly bad week, at the beginning of January I seized the chance of an empty house to go to the beach to stay for a couple of days, to have a break from all that frustrates and regroup a bit. It was a wonderful few days, a time to listen to the quiet - nothing to hear but birds and breaking waves, a time to breathe clean air, and do nothing but sit and gaze at the Pacific ocean or walk along beside it. It was also a time to be able to pray in that quietness, and do some listening to God. So it was a very body- and soul-restoring time, and I came back to the city with a few ideas as to how to do things a little differently to reduce the demands a little. It has been dawning on me slowly that I am only one person, and can't sustain the way I've been working, with the patients that I now have.

So it's now the beginning of February, and I have stuck to my new resolutions fairly well, which has reduced the burden a bit. The frustrations of trying to accomplish things are still alive and well. I have just come home having experienced 2 huge ones. And these are things that are almost incomprehensible to the average Canadian. Again, I'll spare you the details but if any of this happened in Canada the uproar and complaints would be heard for miles around. Here, you just have to fight the urge to burst into tears and throw yourself to the floor in a tantrum, and smile as sweetly as you can and say, "Thanks, I'll come back." All the while knowing that coming back the next time involves yet another long, noisy and desperately hot trip by public transit!!

But, of course, it's not all negatives. Last week, I was able to be at the high school graduation ceremony of 6 of our Bastion kids who have made it all the way though the education system to graduate and go on to university. These kids are from the very first class ever in our little Hope of Bastion school, and have overcome many difficulties to get to where they have. The odds are against so many of these Bastion kids: lack of money for uniforms and books, lack of parental support, lack of structure and discipline in the home, the wish to go and get a job to have some pocket money. Pregnancy is another huge issue, many of these kids go off to live with each other, with parental consent, at age 15, 16, 17, and of course, inevitably get pregnant. And that's the end of their education!
So I felt very proud of our kids as I watched them get their diplomas last week. It was an enormous accomplishment.

And now school is out and camp season is upon us. The first of 4 weeks starts on Monday. As always, it seems to have arrived much faster than we somehow expected, and we wonder if we're ready. Last weekend we took about 30 of those who will be leaders and counsellors in the coming weeks to camp for a part work weekend, and part training time. Everybody worked very hard on Saturday morning, getting the place ready - cleaning cabins, windows, mattresses, shifting piles of construction leftovers, painting.... Lots got done. And then there were sessions by a great guy from Quito, teaching some leadership skills. It seemed a very young group, but some of the older ones who were not able to be there for the weekend will be at camp.
So ready or not, it all gets underway on Monday. The first 2 weeks will be youth camps, then there's a 2 week break, followed by 2 weeks for children. We have groups of North Americans coming to be a part 3 of those weeks. And at the same time other groups will be arriving via Quito to go to Onzole to work on projects there. And we look forward to seeing how God will overcome the problems, and work wonders in both places.

And.....I am looking forward to having a couple of my own family members arrive to visit, my niece comes next week for 10 days, and then in March my sister is coming back for a second visit, and she'll be here for a month. And I'm SO looking forward to these visits.

So, please pray for us in these weeks ahead. And I will write about them.

Return to Onzole

Last week Nikki and I went north to visit the jungle communities on the River Onzole, right up near the Colombian border. This involves an 11 hour night on a bus from Guayaquil, not even a little bit fun, followed by a few hours in a motorized canoe up the river, and that part is a lot of fun, for me anyway. I LOVE being on that river, even though it was 5 hours this time. There hasn't been much rain there in the last few months, so the river was very low in places, meaning a much longer time getting in. But I don't mind at all, there's so much to see along the way - little communities whose lives revolve around that river - it's their "road" in and out, with the canoe being the vehicle, how they transport their produce from the little farms to market, where they bathe, do laundry, get water. Dugout canoes going by, loaded with plantains, or coconuts. And then there's the birds and butterflies. So many brightly coloured birds, and I saw a kingfisher for the first time. And a beautiful bright blue butterfly. It never fails to enthrall me.
When we arrive, we stay in the village of Santo Domingo, a place where life hasn't changed very much over the years. Electricity only arrived in the last year or so, and it's often out. There's no running water anywhere, at this time of the year all water is carried up the steep bank from the river. In the rainy season rainwater is collected for drinking.

Heading out for a day at the office...
This was the first time I've been there when the kids are in class in the school. This school was crumbling badly and last spring 2 groups from Canada came and worked with the villagers to reconstruct much of it. It's a huge improvement.

This is how it used to look.
some of the kids from the primary class were glad of an excuse to escape to greet us and pose happily for photos!

What do you think, could these older kids use some better desks to work on??

I went one afternoon with Yadira, who works for Compassion, to a village further upriver to visit a couple of families. While we were there suddenly the heavens opened and I saw these little guys joyously having a shower under a waterfall pouring off a roof.

Then just as suddenly the rain stopped and the sun came out, giving me this photo. What a beautiful place!

There are some astonishing bugs in that part of the world, this guy showed up inside the house one morning. It was just a little smaller than my hand.

This trip was a nice break for me. I only had a couple of patients with minor issues come to see me, and there was no other work I had to do, so I took the chance that God gave me and let myself rest and enjoy the peace of that place. And take a few (okay, a lot, you're only seeing a few!) pictures, which really is the best way of showing you this different world.

There's a bit of an empty space in Bastion now that wasn't there a week ago. Richard, a young man who I've had a lot to do with, died suddenly and very unexpectedly on Sunday evening. He would have turned 30 on Dec. 9. He had had epilepsy for many years, poorly controlled, and didn’t do himself any favours in his younger years, using alcohol, and maybe drugs as well. He was somewhat disabled from so many seizures, with partial paralysis on one side, looked like he’d had a stroke. He was well known in the community of block 6 in Bastion, all the youth knew him, and he became part of our lives 3 or 4 years ago, coming to the church, almost never missed and present at all events. He was always the first one to sign up for an outing, of any kind, was always at camp, as a camper or as a maintenance helper. He was usually alone, but that seemed to be okay. But whenever he had a seizure, and they were quite frequent, the boys would be by his side in an instant, lying him down, and holding him until it passed. They were very good to him.
I took him to emergency one night in March, and he was sick enough then that I wondered if he would live, but he did, and we got his meds adjusted and got him back on track, and he’s been doing well, even got a job working in a little restaurant the last few months. But then I got a call early Monday morning to say he was gone. He had what seems to have been a cardiac event of some kind and he was gone by the time they got him to the hospital.

And I was thus introduced to a whole new part of this culture, all that takes place around a death. All of it very very different to what I'm used to in my own culture. It started with the "velorio", much like an old fashioned wake, I think. On Monday evening we went to his home, and the entire front of the house had been cleared and transformed to a mini-funeral parlour, with the coffin at the front and rows of chairs set up. We went in, and sat down, and that seems to be all you do. You don't pay your respects to the family, visit awhile, then leave. You come and sit and stay, some would stay all night. We did sing 3 of Richard's favourite hymns, the idea of a few from the church, but that's all. People came in, went to the coffin, crossed themselves and then went and sat down inside or with the many outside too. Many of the tough street guys came and went. At 10, after 2 hours of this we decided that it was time for us to move on, but Richard's mother wouldn't let us go until we had been fed, the customary "rosca", hard dry breadstick rings, and a piece of cheese. And cola. And then we left.

The burial was the next afternoon. We all met at the house, and in due course the coffin came out on the shoulders of some men and was carried out of Bastion, with all of us following on foot. When we got to the main road outside Bastion most of us got onto pickup trucks, and others, mostly men, with 4 still carrying the coffin on their shoulders, headed off along that busy main highway to the cemetery. It was quite a long way, and it was incredibly hot in a full blazing sun, I just don't know how they did it. This is a custom that the poor have brought with them from the country, and have held onto, carrying their dead to be buried. Walking all the way, doesn't seem to matter how far it is. Along the way I was shocked to see how little respect was shown the procession by passing traffic, they just honked and pushed their way through as though this was just some annoying slow moving traffic. I was really surprised to see that in this very Catholic country, I didn't expect it.

(I have to confess that in the midst of all this, part of me was wishing for my camera and a way to take a few photos invisibly. Here was this procession, a little decrepit pickup truck leading the way, with a middle aged gringa perched up on the side in the back, hanging on tight, followed by the walking men, with the coffin wobbling aloft, followed by another 2 or 3 trucks with the rest of the mourners packed into the back. Accompanied by the ever-present vendors trying to sell bottles of water, and the traffic roaring by us, or at us!)

Finally arrived at the cemetery, where there was a little trouble getting someone to open the gates to let us in, and then we proceeded on foot to the grave. Cemeteries here consist of stacks of cement cubicles, not graves in the ground as we know. When we arrived at the right spot, there was a priest waiting, he put on a gown, got a table organized and got underway. It was a mass (Richard came from a Catholic family and this is how they do it). It took a good hour, with everyone standing there. Lots of rituals, all new to me. He had a message too, about how to try to be better people, and the solution to it all was love. And then the coffin was opened so the family could say a final goodbye, and while that was happening I noticed a guy standing by with a bag of cement and water and trowel and bricks, and I realized what that was about. As soon as the coffin was closed up again and slid into its cubbyhole, he got to work, sealing it in. With everybody still standing there, watching. We saw the job through to the end.

It was a sad day, but I was thinking about the many memories I have of Richard, having seizures, being alone, being so sick, I can remember looking at him as he lay on the stretcher in emergency in March, and wondering what the future looked like for him. And he was apparently depressed, one of the boys told me. And now all that’s over for him. He will never have another seizure, he is out of the poverty and difficulties that he faced in life, and he's at peace and happy, in the presence of his Saviour.