The Dining Room Table
Dusty yellow checked with lace inlets and embroidered flowers...the tablecloth that covers the dining room table where we sit for more than two hours most every day...breakfast, lunch, and dinner...consuming Ecuadorian cuisine and even more nourishing...Ecuadorian family life and culture. After prayers, rice, various potatoes, soups & juices with chicken or thinly slices of beef are served with thick slices of conversation and contagious laughter....even when we don't know what we are laughing about. When Tatinana is here, she spends as much time translating as eating. When she is not, we play charades...and all of us are learning new words in the other's language. Tonight Rodrigo brought a globe to the table so we could show him Michigan and places we have been and he found places he'd been. After much talking, we all clear the table and usually I help do dishes and sometimes have helped prepare the meal... giving me a window into the Sonnia's kitchen.

Sunday Service at Sonnia's Church
How do we always end up in the front row? Went to church at Sonnia's home church...Templo Evangelico Alianza... and again were ushered to the front row. Can't say we saw one other non Hispanic person. The words to the songs were projected on a big screen so we could sing along--reading Spanish is much easier than learning it. Rodrigo had given us an English Gideon bible to bring. After church, we were introduced to a round of people...ministers, fellow Gideons, Sonnia's theoloy techer and friends One even spoke English! As Sonnia promised, it only lasted one hour...unlike last week's service at Plenitud de Dios!