Weather...and other things.

In Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth a character named 'The Whether Man' says this: "It's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be." It's not an incredibly helpful quote, but it makes one think at least (and for any of you who haven't read The Phantom Tollbooth, it's really quite an amazing book).

Anyway...there was weather today. 'Bad weather' as some call it, or 'Gloomy weather' maybe. Whatever the case, it was cloudy and rainy all day today. Just yesterday it was sunny and nice. There was some wind, sure, but it really was a pretty nice day. Nice enough to spend some time at Utah Lake at least. :) It just amazes me that one day I'm out on a wave runner getting sunburned and the next day I don't even want to go outside. Utah is just such a magical place... 

Almost as magical as Ecuador. Okay, not really. In Ecuador it rains every day out of the year except maybe...10. I'm exaggerating, I know, but it rains a lot there. Only, the cool thing about Ecuador is that it stays at an even 72 degrees every day. And that's not exaggerating. You never really had to wear a coat, unless you were from Cali and everything below 85 is chilly... 

Ecuador really is a magical place. I think that now might be as good a time as any to blog about the "Ecuador Experience". Here goes nothing! :)

Once upon a time, there was a family named the Cannons. They lived in Eagle Mountain (where the deer and the antelope play). One day, mama and papa Cannon were talking to some old friends of theirs, and found out that these friends had been to a magical place called Ecuador, and had served there for several weeks. This sounded like a wonderful service opportunity, so they signed up quick. They also signed up their 7 children. It would be somewhat difficult to leave the country with 7 young children at home. So we all packed up to go to Ecuador. We left on December 28th, 2006 at about 2:30 am. It was...really early. But we had to catch the red eye to Houston. 

So, after various airport adventures, we arrived in Cuenca, Ecuador on December 29th, 2006. 

We got off the plane and loaded our luggage onto a few vans to take us to the "OSSO House". This would be our home for the next 6 weeks. We moved everything into out downstairs apartment and got all situated. We had a gas stove (that had to be lit with a match), and fridge, a sink (with water that we weren't allowed to drink...) and a purified water dispenser (that we could drink...duh). All of the floors were hard, cold tile, and the walls were plastered cement. Nice and homely, I'd say. 

The OSSO house was big enough to hold the host family, the Roseros, 10-15-ish college girls that had also volunteered, and us. There was a living room with a couch that looked a lot more comfortable than it actually was, a couple of computers, and an internet phone (it was a phone with an 801 number, so you didn't have to call long distance to home. It was really nice). There was also a kitchen and a dining area that was always stocked with delicious fruits and breads. Yum! The mangos were my favorite. I hardly went a day without eating at least 2 mangos. And they weren't anything like the mangos here. They were almost as big as a pineapple, and orange and red. you never saw a green mango. Ew. Then there were the "monkey brains" that I didn't really like. I think they were called granadillas, or some such thing. They had a hard outer shell, and then a bunch of seeds in some slimy grey...stuff. Hence the name monkey brains.

So...now for the actual reason we were there...service! Yay. There were, I think 5 different orphanages that we served in there in Cuenca. Tadeo Torres was split into Cunas, Casas, and Pequeñitos. Cunas held children from birth until around 2, and then Casas held children from about 2-5 or 6. Pequeñitos had some infants and some special needs children. Then there was Special Kids that had more special needs children. Hogar Miguel León was an orphanage for girls ages 2 or 3 to 18. Remar was an orphanage for boys and girls of those ages. Oh, and there was Trinidad that was more of a day care, or a school, but we still went there to help out. 

I was in Casas for most of my time there. We would work in 2 shifts, 7 days a week. The morning shift was from about 7 until noon, and the afternoon shift was from 1-ish until 5 or 6. We would feed the children breakfast, help them brush their teeth, and then we'd spend most of our time just playing with them. We'd give them "caballo" (horse) rides, read them books en español, and bring them to el parque to play on the swings, teeter totter, etc. It was a blast. The children were so cute and sweet. Most days we just wanted to take them all home with us. (That's probably why we ended up adopting...but that's a different story.)

We had a lot of fun with the children, and there's really too much to write in one post. I'll have to touch more on this subject later, but in short, going to Ecuador to serve the children was one of the most life-changing experiences of my life. I got to see the world from so many new perspectives. It was incredible. 

Oh, and on a side note, if anyone is thinking about some kind of service opportunity, I would definitely recommend looking into this one. Go to http://www.orphanagesupport.org/. That's the website of the organization that we went down with. 

Anyway, it's time for bed, so I'll see y'alls later. I hope this was somewhat inspiring...or at least...not too boring. It was kind of just a bunch of semi-connected, random memories about Ecuador, but it's good to write at least some of the things that happened there...I guess. :D

Well, have a nice day,

-Moscas