Words for my week...

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful (constant) in prayer.” Romans 12:12

Thoughts on CHRISTmas

Beto, an Ecuadorian friend of mine, recently told me that he "hated Christmas. I is the ugliest time of the year for my country," he said, "the time when you can most clearly see the disparity between rich and poor. It spits in your face. I hate it." At first I was taken aback. As someone who is on the 'richer' side of things, of course I would love Christmas..family, peanut brittle, presents, vacations...I've never known what it would be like to hate the holiday. Later that night, as I kept thinking about his strong words, I reflected on the economic paradox of Jesus- the King that was born in a manger. Christmas, the night that He was born, also reflected a time when disparity between rich and poor was as its highest. Because all of the inns were full, Mary had no other choice but to give birth in a barn, next to donkeys and cows. This realization, however, is not a sad one. The savior of the world was poor..Hallelujah! The king of Kings abides with and loves the poor...Hallelujah! Yes, Christmas is a time when disparity is magnified, but it is also a celebration that Christ came to redefine poverty and to turn our understand of 'wealth' upside-down.

In our modern day, secular society we have transformed the celebration of our saviors birth into a consumeristic hay-day that makes rich children richer and poor children more aware of their depravity. The question I pose is 'How can we transform 'giving,' an act meant to recognize the gift we are all freely given in Christ, into a true celebration of Jesus. I would bet that Jesus does not smile upon parents who buy up Toys-R-Us for their only child, celebrating 'in His name' or on all of the university students at San Francisco who receive new cars for CHRISTmas when their neighbors in Lumbisi struggle to provide daily meals. In this culture, that seems to have perfected the art of celebration, there is something missing, something that has been twisted when it comes to those days at the end of December. What happened to Jesus? How would Jesus want to be honored?

Disclaimer: After writing this except I realize that I have made a lot of strong generalizations. I am posing these questions as much to myself as i am to any other person. Something that can not be overlooked is that Christly giving has everything to do with our hearts and a position of humility. That said, parents showering their children with toys or friends exchanging video games is not an evil within itself. Any gift, if given with a heart of humility and love is beautiful. I myself grew up in a household with parents who have mastered the art of Christly giving. Although what my brother and I received was 'much,' I remember few of the actual gifts we were given. What i do remember is the realization and experience of their unspeakable love for us. It was always obvious that their giving of 'things,' was a physical demonstration of Christ's love and blessing for us all. Having clarified this, I wonder if as Christians we still have a responsibility to recognize the structural sin that has led to such extreme disparity and poverty in countries like Ecuador. Are there ways that we can transform our Christmas celebrations and in doing so redirect our hearts towards honoring Christ- a man who lived with, loved and delighted in the poor?

La Concordia, motorcycles, pedicures and cancer.

I woke up early Sunday morning to meet my best friend, Niche, at the bus terminal in Quito. Last week his father was diagnosed with lung cancer and not knowing how fast it was progressing, we decided that it was high time I make the trip down to the coast to meet the family and see where my tall, almost-famous, soccer playing friend, grew up.

Once in the bounds of La Concordia you can get into any taxi and ask them to take you to the house of Don Sixto Delgado, Niche's father. They just nod their head and start off in the right direction. That in itself is a sign of respect and legacy. When we arrived the house of full of different people. I had no idea which one's were family and which ones were just neighbors, but overall it was not that important, we greeted everyone the same. The women were in the kitchen preparing lunch and the man who I would come to find out was Niche's father was laying on the couch watching a soccer game. The house was filled with pictures of Chuchu, one of the older brothers who played on the 2007 pan-american team in Brazil. It was obviously a source of great pride for the family and for the whole town. Out of 8 siblings his picture was the only one scene on the mostly barren walls.

I was told by everyone that they had been waiting so long to meet me and that they knew a lot about me. I suppose people in the states might say the same thing about Niche. As we sat down for lunch I was surprised to find out that two of the older siblings requested that we pray together before eating. At first I though that they were trying to be being sensitive to my customs, but it was obvious from the prayer that the town were faithful Jehovah's Witnesses, something I would become much more familiar with in a few hours.

After lunch Niche and I went with his father to the town 'stadium' (a dusty looking soccer field) where he acted as the official for the local tournament games. As we walked up everyone, black, mestizo, young and old, greeted us and asked Señor Delgado how he was doing. I really felt like I was walking around with some important people. Stares were only magnified at the sight of a white girl in the town..something that I imagine is few and far between.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of people passing by the house, a 2 hour long conversation with Eloisa about how I should be interpreting the Bible (you better believe i did some research afterwards on how to converse with JW’s), and my favorite part...motercycle driving lessons! In spite of the immense poverty that exists in a town like La Concordia, EVERYONE on the coast rides around on motorcycles. A friend of Niche’s let us take his out for a spin and, (mom don’t read this part), I have never gone for such a crazy fast ride. As we whipped through the dirt roads and palm trees I have to admit that I was a little nervous, but as the same time I was surprisingly comforted by the fact that my friend, who only recently turned 17, grew up running the bumpy roads with a manual bike. When we reached a more open space we traded places and I learned how to change gears and drive at a comfortable speed. If i thought people were staring before, imagine what it was like for people to see the same white girl driving a motorcycle through theire streets.

As evening came we bought some 10 cents ice cream and sat outside of the house chatting on the typical plastic lawn chairs that are seen outside of every house. Chatting turned into dancing when someone down the block turned up there music, and again everyone was surprised that white girl had a few moves :) I took turns dancing with every person as to give each fair chance to judge for themselves, but in the end they all concluded that I danced ‘like a negrita.’

Sitting around the house with Niche’s family felt like being back at Wheaton. It was a different scene than Quito...entertainment came from our own imaginations rather than the flashy clubs or advertisements. When we were all pretty tired Eloisa came up with the idea to play categories, we broke up into teams of 2 and started with the letter ‘T.’ Further into the game I would figure out that the winner was the one who could cheat the best, but for the moment I was too concentrated in trying to figure out the name of a fruit that started with T in Spanish. (Taxo and Tomate, for those of your who were curious.) I had always known that Ecuadorian geography was pretty bad (no one has ever traveled to anywhere outside of the country) but I was still pretty shocked to see that under the ‘city’ category every single person had put Tailandia.

I do not know much about lung cancer and what it entails, but as it got later Señor Delgado seemed to be in more and more pain. His breathing got heavier and it became harder for him to sit still in one position. Eventually Niche’s mother sent everyone home and the atmosphere of the house became solemn. We all sat around the sofa, quite, watching the miserable patient toss and turn. The siblings took turns massaging their fathers chest or running a hot water cooler up and down his back. At one point Niche knelt beside his fathers prostrate body and began to weep. His mother and sister pulled him away knowing saying that if his father started crying he would not be able to breathe. My dear friend groaned ‘Mi papi, Mi papi...’ as he was led into another room to compose himself. I sat with him in the vulnerable state knowing that all I could offer was a shoulder to rest on and my shared tears. An hour or so later the hard breathing had past and everyone went back to their normal routines. On the one hand there is room for mourning and on the other, death and sickness have their place a mist the poor and survival implies the ability to cope and move on. There is talk of an operation and while everyone talks as if this sickness too is something that will pass, the word cancer to my ears has a fatal and tragic ring to it.

As we got ready for bed sweet Eloisa helped me bathe myself in the back yard. There is no actual shower or hot water so we took turns pouring buckets of water over each others heads. It is a humbling experience to realize that i had no idea what I was doing even in something as simple as taking a shower.

Walking back inside she offered to paint my toenails, something it turns out that she does for a living in the small town. We laid on her bed, chatted and I got the best pedicure I have ever had. My toes are now adorned with small flowers and sparkles. :)

Just as soon as we had come one morning we pulling out the next saying our goodbyes...I am amazed by how much one day can change the way we see the world.

Pictures: Family and friends dancing and posing for pictures, Niche with his father, Señor Sixto Delgado, Me with the littlest Delgado, 12-year-old Andres.

“I do,” Lumbisí style.

When I arrived in Lumbisí Saturday morning I was greeted with a ‘Courley! Hi, how are you? Grab those flowers and corra get into the car!’ It was a crazy house of women running around with flowers and food, Ozwaldo, the fiancé driving them where they needed to go and kids playing around with decorations and fancy dresses. After taping the flowers to the pew benches of the church and chopping a lot of tomatos, I was given the honor and responsibility of accompanying la novia, the bride, to get her hair and nails done in Cumbaya. She had been working all day as well and it was nice to see her relax and feel a bit pampered on her wedding day. Getting back I threw on a dress and we all headed over to the church.

Weddings, like most Ecuadorian events, are a familial affair. Everyone contributes and everyone celebrates. The nephew that has a car lends it to the family so that they can run the errands that they need to get done. The uncle that raises pigs brings two to the slaughter for the grand feast. The father that abandoned his girlfriend and family at a young age returns to walk his daughter down the aisle. The aunts and daughters spend weeks arranging flowers, tying ribbons and writing invitations and even the kids help prepare food and set up chairs. It makes me laugh to think of the western notion of wedding planners, caterers and florists.

After the short service deeply affirming Catholic theology and tradition, comes the long party deeply affirming the latino heart of celebration. A ‘Fiesta del pueblo’ is an experience hard to capture in words. At any celebration, be is a baptism, birthday or wedding, guests are fed a traditional three course meal along with lots of alcohol. Chicha is a highly alcoholic indigenous drink made from corn and wheat. I personally think that it smells like hotdogs and can’t down even a sip, but the town loves it! As people drink more and more the songs get longer and the dancing crazier. Cumbia is heard blasting from speakers well into the night.

The following morning it is tradition that the godparents of the marriage, along with the wedding party and guests bring chocolate and bread for the couple’s first breakfast together. The crowd marched through the streets of Lumbisí with a huge pot of hot chocolate and bags of bread, handing it out to people as they made their way down the hill to the happy home. The day long celebration ends with chocolate..what is not to love about this country?

Photos: Glory getting ready for the big event.

Esteban, Maria José, Ozwaldo, Gloria, Fernanda and Matias....my beautiful family.

Leaving the church being attacked by rice.

Jenny and I with her new little girl! (I fit right in with my black hair, right!?)

The first dance with the Mariachi band.

Where the magic happens..serving up the COMIDA!

Hospitalidad in Lumbisí

Sense I arrived last Thursday I am yet again overwhelmed by the hospitality and joy that I have felt and experienced among my family, friends, and even those that I am just getting to know. This small town has taught me more about life in community than anything else ever could. In a place where the people have at most a few dollars to their name on any given day I have been fed, gifted and welcomed into humble homes as an esteemed guest.

As I walk though the streets of Lumbisí some recognize me and call me by name (or something close to it..Courley, Corney, Korlik), asking about my family and how I have returned. Others, mostly children, run into my arms without words holding on as if for dear life, or possibly just because they know my time will again be temporary as it is with most gringos. Many others, however, just stare. They might ask ‘y los negritos?’, referring of course to my two best friends, Diego and Wilmer. They know that if we are not together we have mistakenly gotten separated.

I have passed whole days visiting with different families, chatting while a mothers puts on boiling water for tea, or pour different flavors of cola into small glasses. I have a backload of invitations to eat, stay the night or even just play a game of futbol.

I feel very honored to be remembered and welcomed by such a beautiful little town. I can already tell that its going to be hard to move to Quito.

La Capilla del Hombre

La Capilla del Hombre, "the chapel of Man", is amuseumhousing the artwork of Guayasamín, a famous 20th century artist from Quito. His works depict the struggles and suffering of downtrodden people. A tour through his paintings is an unsettling journey through Ecuador’s turbulent history. He does well to illustrate the pain and sadness of having lost friends and colleagues in insurrections and political upheavals throughout South America. The Chapel’s contemplative environment and Guayasamin’s impressive larger-than-life paintings refreshed my memory of Latin American history, the root of Ecuador’s continuous struggles and challenges.

In his time a good friend of Fidel Castro and Chaves, Guayasamín was an idealist who protested enslavement in Africa, European cruelty and Indigenous rights with his artwork. He had a heart for the suffering population from Hiroshima victims and Jew’s in the World-wars to mothers who lost children in Chilean catastrophes to the general starvingpeoples of his impoverished continent. He dreamed of a new sort of social system that would rescue and empower those at the bottom. The following a few of his words and works that, for me, evoked a lot of emotion.

• “Art encompasses life; it is a way to love.”

• This girl is LatinAmerica. She is mestizo, waking up at her earlypre-colombian beginnings. The different shades and colors represent her people’s mix of race and origin.

• “Painting is a sort of prayer as well as a cry."

Two portrayals of Jesus’ death. In the painting on the left Guayasamin took Quarton’s famous painting and made is fit into a latin-american context. Jesus, it appears is dying from hunger or malnutrition rather than his death on the cross. There is no halo over the heads of the saints and the use of red reflects Guayasamin’s emotional component.

I loved this picture because each square can actually more to create a new sort of story and meaning for the piece as a whole. The different images reflect Ecuador and its various struggles.

VIVIR JUNTOS

This is a poem that one of my best friends, Christine Kirschner, wrote during her time in Peru. Although I have changed a few of the words to describe community here, our experience is the same. Her words seem to capture the unexplainable sentiment that drawls me into to Latin American culture:

VIVIR JUNTOS

Vivir juntos …
Means we all eat the same food.
Even if we don’t like it. Even if it’s burned. Even if we aren’t used to it.
We eat together.
And when there is no food,
we don’t. No one does.
Means your friend is mine. Your sister is mine.
Your newborn daughter is my niece. I rejoice in her life with you … as much as you do.
I hold her to my heart.
Is laughter and tickles. When I make a mistake, you laugh … and so do I.
Your joy is mine. My joy is yours.

Means your problems are my problems and mine have become yours.

I need help and you drop everything.
Is cuddling in bed. Is sharing body heat in the cold of the night.
Is placing your cold feet under my warm ones.
Is crying with you. Is hearing your story as if it were mine.
As if I had been beaten by my own brother.
As if I had been threatened by my own husband.
As if I had been neglected by my own father.
Is entering your hurts without trying to escape, explain, fix.

Means greeting each other every morning and every time we pass with a kiss even if I don’t feel like being social.
Means washing clothes and cooking and cleaning on Saturdays. We.
Means watching TV. Lots of it. Disney movies I have seen a thousand times.
Only now in Spanish.
Means learning more than teaching.
Validating what you know.
Accepting.
Quietly. Patiently.
Means being late. Waiting for you to
brush your hair, finish your knitting, drink your tea, change your clothes again …
Involves being without doing.
Involves taking interest in what interests you.
Involves disagreeing but respecting. Being offended but not lashing out.
Offending but accepting forgiveness. Listening and not just hearing.
Means crowded buses, forced to all but embrace you, a stranger sitting on my lap.
This is how we go to work together.
Means that when I’m angry at you, you can tell. And I tell you.
And we still do life together.
When I look sad you ask why. And I tell you.
Or if you don’t ask why, I don’t hold it against you.
Sharing. When you are hungry, you buy 2 oranges.
One for you and one for me.
When there is only one mattress,
We sleep on it together.
Sacrificing. When it’s your turn to pay, but you don’t have anything,
I pay. Without worrying that you’ll pay me back.
When I want to sleep, but you want to talk,
I listen.
Accompanying. When I have things to do, but you have an errand to run,
I go. Without rushing you.
And waiting. Why am I here? To be with you.
Your reality is my reality is our reality.
Vivimos JUNTOS.

PLACEMENT!

Hey guys, I just got my placement! I will be teaching English at Centro de Educación Continua which is part of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional. It is located right outside of the Mariscal in Downtown Quito. AWESOME!

Round Three: Worldteach Ecuador!

Hey faithful blog readers! It's been a long time sense I have used this journal, and regretfully I did not keep a good account of last summer's adventures in Ecuador. However, this post marks the beginning of South America trip number three!

As many of you know (or can piece together from this blog) I spent fall semester 2008 living and studying in Quito Ecuador. I was so enthralled with the country that I decided to spend the next summer volunteering in a small town called Lumbisí that sits right outside of the big city. Ecuador, now less of an 'experience,' and more my second home will again be my residence for the next year as I begin my new post-college life with a program called Worldteach.

Worldteach is similar to a 'Teach for America program,' for foreign countries. Orientation starts on August 17th and will consist of a month long training period in English as a second language, teaching skills, cultural awareness and in-class room practicum. From there I will be placed, along with the other 42 volunteers, into the Ecuadorian public school system as a full time, governmentally employed English teacher. (yikes!!!)

I leave about two weeks from today on August 5th figuring that I need a few weeks to visit friends and get logistics worked out before the program starts. I will be arriving in Lumbisí to stay with my old host-familiy during the first part of August. Typical of Latin American, I really don't have many more details at this point. Hopefully before I leave I will know my placement location, living situation, etc...but for now I'm relishing in an extreme lesson of patience :)

It makes me laugh to look back at this blog and read some of the blogs that I tried to post in Spanish. Let's hope that my grammar has improved some sense then. If I do post in Spanish this time I promise I'll try and keep things translated :) Or those of you who wish to know whats going on could just keep going with that Rosetta Stone (caugh caugh mom and dad caugh ) hehe. Anyways, thanks for reading!

Hasta Pronto!