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!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Storm
The bible lesson we are now doing is about the storm that Jesus calmed while out with his disciples. It’s solid message of keeping your faith and letting Jesus calm your storms . Rog has cut plastic water bottles to make boats and added screws to mount a sail and adds a prow. We have them color and add a cut out of Jesus & the disciples. The kids have loved putting it all together. I play musical chairs and a balloon game and Tatiana plays a memory game . We make a good team! I pray the lesson will surface for them when they face a life crisis.
Day Off
After many days of lessons and prepping, we got a day off. We decided to visit the museums. The Historical was the best. It included a section of rebuilt buildings, a zoo with area terrains & animals and an agricultural section with gobs of gorgeous flowers. Colorful parrots flew around freely squawking and entertaining us. Many school kids were there…and while we took pictures of the animals…some took pictures of us!! We responded to many “Hi, How are you?” We also enjoyed a museum that had dioramas of the development of Guayaquil. The modern art museum was strange—just what we expected. I also enjoyed having day to eat American food…Rog is loving Sonnia’s cooking & I am okay with it but was ready for something more familiar…so I ordered a hamburger! Well, it was a “ham”burger…some type of sausage/ham mixture. But as always, the fries were delicious!!!
Bus Ride Around Town
It was time to hop on a bus. We’d been using only taxis to get around but wanted to have “the real thing” so we checked out the destination flashing on the front of the buses and jumped on the one headed in the direction we wanted to go. It went in the right direction for a while …but came to a roundabout and turned around. Oh well. At least we were seeing the other side of the street. After a bit, we were going by the homes that clung to the side of the mountains. The close up view made me wonder even more how they managed to keep from tumbling down the mountain and how one could walk from point A to B without sliding down. A young girl behind us tried out her English on us…and confirmed that eventually the bus would head back to where we wanted to go…but then a man next to us told us that we needed to get off this bus as it was going to stop in the unsafe part of town. …he would get us on a better bus. So the next stop, our new buddy (who was a HS teacher) and we got off that bus and waited until the right one came along. He talked to the driver and then ushered us on. Unconditional kindness again. It must have been Take Your Family to Work Day as next to the driver stood his wife holding their sleeping little boy, a 7 or 8 yr old was taking the fare money and an older daughter who sat behind them reading a magazine. At red lights, the dad & 7-8 yr old were playing some game on a pad of paper which must have been fun cause it made them smile lots. At some point, the driver’s family waved bye and got off. We did finally arrive at our destination and the driver made sure we got off. All this for just the 25 cent cost of the bus fare!!!
Bus Ride Notes
Government buildings, banks and pharmacies are by far the nicest buildings. Price of gas is $1.46 regular and $1.04 for diesel…and an attendant pumps it for you!!! The space next to ramps are filled with well groomed areas often with statues and water fountains. On side streets, trash is piled on corners and picked up by the city trash trucks…not sure how often.
The bible lesson we are now doing is about the storm that Jesus calmed while out with his disciples. It’s solid message of keeping your faith and letting Jesus calm your storms . Rog has cut plastic water bottles to make boats and added screws to mount a sail and adds a prow. We have them color and add a cut out of Jesus & the disciples. The kids have loved putting it all together. I play musical chairs and a balloon game and Tatiana plays a memory game . We make a good team! I pray the lesson will surface for them when they face a life crisis.
Day Off
After many days of lessons and prepping, we got a day off. We decided to visit the museums. The Historical was the best. It included a section of rebuilt buildings, a zoo with area terrains & animals and an agricultural section with gobs of gorgeous flowers. Colorful parrots flew around freely squawking and entertaining us. Many school kids were there…and while we took pictures of the animals…some took pictures of us!! We responded to many “Hi, How are you?” We also enjoyed a museum that had dioramas of the development of Guayaquil. The modern art museum was strange—just what we expected. I also enjoyed having day to eat American food…Rog is loving Sonnia’s cooking & I am okay with it but was ready for something more familiar…so I ordered a hamburger! Well, it was a “ham”burger…some type of sausage/ham mixture. But as always, the fries were delicious!!!
Bus Ride Around Town
It was time to hop on a bus. We’d been using only taxis to get around but wanted to have “the real thing” so we checked out the destination flashing on the front of the buses and jumped on the one headed in the direction we wanted to go. It went in the right direction for a while …but came to a roundabout and turned around. Oh well. At least we were seeing the other side of the street. After a bit, we were going by the homes that clung to the side of the mountains. The close up view made me wonder even more how they managed to keep from tumbling down the mountain and how one could walk from point A to B without sliding down. A young girl behind us tried out her English on us…and confirmed that eventually the bus would head back to where we wanted to go…but then a man next to us told us that we needed to get off this bus as it was going to stop in the unsafe part of town. …he would get us on a better bus. So the next stop, our new buddy (who was a HS teacher) and we got off that bus and waited until the right one came along. He talked to the driver and then ushered us on. Unconditional kindness again. It must have been Take Your Family to Work Day as next to the driver stood his wife holding their sleeping little boy, a 7 or 8 yr old was taking the fare money and an older daughter who sat behind them reading a magazine. At red lights, the dad & 7-8 yr old were playing some game on a pad of paper which must have been fun cause it made them smile lots. At some point, the driver’s family waved bye and got off. We did finally arrive at our destination and the driver made sure we got off. All this for just the 25 cent cost of the bus fare!!!
Bus Ride Notes
Government buildings, banks and pharmacies are by far the nicest buildings. Price of gas is $1.46 regular and $1.04 for diesel…and an attendant pumps it for you!!! The space next to ramps are filled with well groomed areas often with statues and water fountains. On side streets, trash is piled on corners and picked up by the city trash trucks…not sure how often.
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