CALI!

Hey Y'all.

haha That's what I get for traveling with a Southerner ;)

Just a quick update as it's been pretty crazy recently.

The last couple days in Cali have been quite the adventure. We arrived and loved it! Finally to a place we enjoy. There is tons of action, lots to do, and beautiful, hot, sunny weather. On Monday, we got here, walked around, had a delicious lunch, and took a nap. Then later we went out for dinner and ice cream and ended up going out dancing with some other people from our hostel for awhile. It was fun...athough unfortunately these gringo boys (from England, France, Utah, and a girl from Chile) couldn't really dance. But whatever, if you're at the Salsa capital, you've got to at least try!!

Then yesterday, we went to San Cipriano to go on these train carts with motorcycles (I'll have to add pictures!) to get to a river to swim, tube, and cliff jump! Cool. The ride there wasn't too bad and 5 other foreigners ended up joining us on our bus...a couple from Australia (James and Jackie), a Peruvian guy (Herbert), a German girl (Eva), and an Austrian guy (Chris). We joined in with them as a group for the day. We got on these crazy carts for the ride down, swam in the river (it was so hot and humid!), and even cliff jumped into the river with some of the local kids and teenagers. Then we got a big lunch and decided to head back - you have to get back onto the carts back about 30-40 minutes to the freeway.

Well, that's where the 'crazy' part of Cali comes in...we were in a bit of a choque on the tracks...a motor train cart accident if you will. It honestly all happened so fast that all we know is that we didn't stop enough and ran into another cart head on. After that, we all basically remember waiting in a rain storm and pulling out whatever tissue, towels, neosporene, bandaids, etc we had. We had to get back on another cart then again and eventually get to the main road area where we got on a bus to Cali - which yikes there was a lot traffic, so we didn't get back until 9:30pm. We got back to the hostel and the lady working took us immediately to the ER as Lauren's foot was quite inflammed. Just like any ER in the word - it took forever!!! We were there from 10pm until 3:30am only to return again this morning at 8am to see the specialist. Lauren broke her foot in two places and twisted her ankle pretty bad. What this sadly means is that she will be heading back home to the US tomorrow :( The good news is that she is in a cast, it is only a broken foot (versus head, spine, etc), and she at this point doesn't need surgery. I also luckily walked off with only some minor cuts and bruises.

Needless to say, we haven't slept much in last 2 days, we have eaten 1.5 meals (we shared one today) in days, and we are to sad to be saying our goodbyes. It is really not clear yet God's will in all this, but we are trying our best to keep our spirits up. We are so thankful that there were no very serious injuries and that we had these other (now) friends with us that were so supportive. God is good and clearly His plans are much greater than ours!

Please pray for Lauren as she heads home tomorrow: for her to be out of pain, have a community to love her at home, and a safe, smooth flight. I will miss this girl terribly!! In the last week and a half we have laughed and smiled so much, and she has been so great at just taking everything as it comes. Maybe she'll be back for San Diego!! In addition, please keep Jen and me in your prayers. I am still going to be meeting Jen in Panama City tomorrow to continue our travels. I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Lauren won't be there anymore, but I am excited to keep going on this amazing adventure!

Love you all!
Taylor

Starting Out....Traveling!

Yes, I will be traveling a lot in the next couple months, and I have definitely started out that way! Yesterday (Friday) I spent most of the day on bus going from Quito to Tulcan and then crossing the border into Ipiales, Colombia. The border was a breeze and quite a bit more relaxed than the Juarez-El Paso border. Good thing I've had lots of practice at border crossing ;) There wasn't really that much to do in Ipiales, so we just got dinner, found an internet cafe, and was back in the room by 7:45pm. I know, we're crazy party animals!

Today (Saturday) we got up and walked to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Popayán. It was a nice, little (18 passenger) bus, but still it was a long ride. We left at 9am and arrived in Popayán at 4:30pm without stopping at all for any kind of food and only one little 5 minute break 2 hours into the ride. Oh, and one little pause to get passport checked. Of course we were the only gringas on the bus and 3 officers had to come on to check us out, and as we were pulling away make comments. I will miss being so famous and beautiful down here! Only some people came on selling sugar cane and fruit, but nothing else. We were starving when we got here so we went right across the street to an "almuerzo" spot. It was a great huge meal, including soup, juice, spaghetti, rice, beef, and a little salad for 3800 pesos ....wow so expensive! haha It really was like $2. It's funny how everything is in thousands, because it makes everything seem so expensive.

Well, we are going to stay here in this tiny little locker (aka room) tonight and explore around here tomorrow. We need a break from all the bus time! It's exciting to be out on the road and starting the adventure though. Next update: CALI!

Abrazos, Taylor

Transitioning

Well, it's been an awesome year!

And my time here in Quito is now actually coming to an end. It still feels surreal, and I cannot believe how quickly a year can past, but really I cannot complain. I have been so incredibly blessed this year with God working in the most amazing and often unexpected situations. I know now that God put me here to grow. I have made amazing relationships, but also relationships that might be difficult to maintain even though they have made such an impact on my life. I've learned a lot about myself, relating to other people, and accepting another culture. Not everything was easy this year, but I can say that I have been genuinely happy. One of the greatest examples of this to me was Christmas. Wow, so far away from home and my family, but also I can honestly say it was one of the best Christmas times of my life. It was very different and I was sad at first, but God brought our community together that week to create a family - playing games together, going ice skating, watching Christmas Classics, etc. I'm definitely going to need time to process more, but I want to tell you all thank you for the prayers and continuous support. I am blessed!

Moving on...

This Friday "la aventura" continues for me as I leave for Colombia. For the next 2 months, I will be backpacking home through Central America. My friend Lauren has already made it here to Ecuador safely, and we are about to begin this journey, meeting our friend Jen in Panama City on August 12th. We are doing it 'no reservations' style...aka we have no real plans made, but we do have a tentative schedule and a couple hot spots. We are going to see a couple cities in all 7 Central American countries, as well spend time in Colombia and Mexico. In the beginning of October, we will be ending in San Diego, California visiting my Aunt Kitty and Uncle Scott! I cannot wait to start and see where this new adventure takes me.

I ask again for your prayers! Beyond my excitement, I am nervous and asking for prayers for an open mind. I pray for good fellowship with Lauren and Jen as we embark on this journey together. I also pray that I can live in the moment and be excited and ready for each new day and place. Finally, I pray for safety. I have confidence that God is good and will protect me as His child these next couple months and beyond.

Thank you in advance!
Much love,
Taylor

PS I will be trying to update this blog every couple days as we begin traveling. I don't know how available internet and computer access will be all the way through, but I promise that I will try to do my best!

Saying Goodbye....to Liga!

Last night I bid farewell to my soccer team that I have enjoyed so much as a fill for my "sports void." Former roomates, family: you guys know how I usually spend my Saturdays and Sundays from September until April - watching football or basketball constantly! This year I saw about 4 football games TOTAL and maybe 3 NBA games and some of March Madness. ESPN.com just didn't cut it for me after a while, so I started following pretty regularly the Ecuadorian soccer league, and more specifically LIGA DEPORTIVA UNIVERSITARIA!

I originally picked Liga as my team because that was the team that my host father from 2008, Estaurdo, supported. I went to about 7 or 8 games back then as well, but then this year I live literally a 5 minute walk from the Liga Stadium, La Casa Blanca! Needless to say I can hear all the emotion of these big games right from my house, which of course always gets me in the mood to go. I have gone to games with all different people, including one game alone! (It was the semi-finals of the South American Cup :) ) The Director of Education, Marco Polo, even gave me the Copa Sudamericana FINALS ticket (which were so hard to get) because he knew how much I loved the team. I've traveled a bit with the team...going to Guayaquil and going to games in Athaulpa, the other Quito teams' stadium. I've taken Center families, my own parents, friends and just about every volunteer! Everyone always knew they could count on me to go. Honestly after this year, I cannot tell you how many games I've been to, but probably around 20 or so...basically more than most Ecuadorians, even the big fans!
Well last night was my last game (or at least for a while) and it was a great way to end! It was a big game: Liga v Barcelona. The stadium was packed and the fans (La Muerte Blanca) came strong and with energy. I went with Audrey, and we, of course, went to Sur Baja to be with the best, craziest fans. And beyond that, Liga went out strong with a 2-1 win!

I'll miss the atmosphere and crazy soccer culture, but I cannot wait to get back just in time for football season! Wow, what a great year it would be if I could come home and get to go to a Rose Bowl!!! And hopefully it's an equally good year at Lambeau! Can't wait to bundle up for Camp Randall and the Frozen Tundra and to sit in front of the TV all Saturday and Sunday again.

Saying to goodbye to Liga was probably the lighter note of the past couple weeks...I've also been saying goodbye to almost all of my fellow volunteers and friends. It's been hard, but I've already been keeping in touch and it seems people are doing well. Please keep praying
for all of our transitions!

Much love,
LA LIGUISTA

Slumdog Millionaire Bathroom

This past weekend, I went to La Costa (the coast) with the Lorr family....and with this broken toe. There were 13 of us that traveled from Quito to El Carmen on Friday: Cinthya, Adam, and I, Luz and Fabiola, and 8 of their kids. I love these kids and moms so it was fun to get spend a lot of time with them and get to know their family and where they come from. We got to El Carmen around 4:00pm and found some delicious street food as we were starving from not eating all day. Then we waited to go in the back of a truck into the area where the family lived. They lived down this unpaved, muddy road about an hour outside of town. Finally we got to a point where we couldn't drive anymore and had to walk up a VERY muddy road to get to the house. We all were just laughing so hard and the people in front (Cinthya, Luz, Bryan, Santiago...) all got very muddy and fell a couple times. I went so slow and it was so hard as I was sinking, but the crutches were very helpful and we made it to the house with smiles on our faces! We had a delicious meal, played cards, and then made room for 31 people to sleep...in 5 beds. A lot of people were on the ply wood floor or about 5 or 6 in each bed. Cinthya and I were alone just us in a bed, but in the bed that touched us were 6 people, 2 adults and 4 kids, in a twin size bed.

On Saturday we got up and I helped make a huge breakfast...which was really like a lunch: rice, fish, salad, and juice. It was a very 'rustic' outdoor kitchen, but it was also cool and all the fruit was so fresh and delicious. Then we got ready and trekked down to the river. I walked about the first half of the way down the path (just as the doctor ordered, right :)), but then they put me on the back of a mule because I was going so slow! Wow! I am not a huge fan of horse back riding normally, much less with a homemade saddle and on extremely muddy, steep inclines. It ended up being a sweet experience though and I even crossed over the river with the mule to the other side! Then all the kids, Luz, Fabiola, and Cinthya all got in the water and splashed around for about an hour. I've got to tell you, even only being able to watch from the side of the river was awesome - naked babies are just so darn cute!! Then I rode on the mule with Santiago all the way (about an hour) back to the house - he's Fabiola's 15 year old son and made me feel safe and was so nice. When we made it back, we ate again - the fish the other men caught in the river that morning! Then we packed up and got back into the back of the truck to head into town to get a bus to go to the beach for a day.

Okay, so you might be wondering what's with the blog title.... Slumdog Millionaire Bathroom?? Well, that's what Cinthya, Adam, and I thought the bathroom looked like at the house. You know the bathroom in the beginning of the movie that the little boy falls through to go meet the famous actor. The bathroom was on the second story and you had to cross wood slabs in order to get to this bathroom that was a big hole that dropped down. It was kind of gross, but also pretty humorous. I finally had to cave into to go around 11:30pm on Friday night, and Fabiola and Cinthya had to help me across the slabs as they were slippery from the rain and I wasn't walking very well. I wasn't even embarrassed as it was just a hilarious situation though!

Hope you also have an opportunity to laugh at something so genuinely ridiculous too!
Abrazos,
Taylor

La Despedida

The farewells have begun.

This past weekend was the big ‘despedida’ (farewell event) that we all have been anxiously anticipating. July 3rd really never felt close to me, and really even in the last week of classes I couldn’t believe that it was really coming to an end. I think that most of the volunteers actually felt this way as well, but we all also made the best of it and spent a lot of time together throughout the weekend.


Friday morning, the boys (Joe and Carl and the Germans) got up early and made us all eggs, potatoes, fresh squeezed orange juice, and chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast! Aren’t they so darn cute? Then in Special Ed, we made frames to put a picture of all of us in and I said goodbye to David (except I still do see him down in the bakery!) For girls’ program, Adam and I decided to make a special little event for the girls instead of working on the last day. We bought them gifts from all the other girls’ program groups and, of course, included some underwear and toothbrushes too ;) In addition, we decided to make them an “All-American” breakfast. We made them eggs with cheddar cheese, bacon, sausages, and juice for their last morning. They all loved it as most of them had never tried bacon or “yellow cheese” before in their lives…adorable little girls! Then we gave them their gifts and paid them for all their work this semester. I won’t miss burning millions of rosary necklaces and bracelets, but I will miss working with these girls and having them as part of my team.


Saturday morning we all got up for the 9AM soccer match-up of the year: women volunteers versus Ecuadorian moms and staff. It really is all just in good fun, but we decided to get really into it and Friday afternoon made USA tank tops that we wore for the game. We sewed on American flags on the front and then put nicknames and numbers on the back. My name was “La Liguista” because of my slight obsession with Liga, the Quito soccer team! Some of the girls are really good at soccer, so we pretty much dominated and won like 7-4 or something like that, but I’m not positive as the referee was a little biased as he is a Center dad and kept jokingly calling penalties and taking away goals to try to help the moms. It didn’t really matter though and we all had fun playing! Then after we finished, the guys took the field for a bit more intense match up with the dads. There are only 4 guy volunteers, so 2 girls, Jess and Audrey, also played with them until the German guys came back from watching their World Cup game. The boys didn’t do quite as well, but still had fun and stayed in good spirits.

After the soccer games was Mass, in which each of us volunteers were mentioned and then communally prayed for, and then lunch. I decided to stay down in the cafeteria for lunch with the families and hang out until the actual Despedida presentation at 3pm.

The Despedida was actually quite sweet. The preschoolers came up with a little poem, then the elementary school girls did a dance, and the high school girls did a little skit poking fun at some of the volunteers. Then the funniest was some of the adults dressing up like really old people with canes and doing a silly dance. Then all the other volunteers got up and danced with them too. It was really cute. Marco Polo, the education director, said a couple words and then the kids handed us out little presents (a t-shirt and picture frame from Madre Miguel). After we got our gifts it was crazy! We were all swarmed with all kinds of kids and adults coming up for hugs and crying, but it was sweet. One of my students, Maria Jose, was sobbing and sobbing even though I tried to explain to her that I would still be here for another month. She really wanted me to be coming back next year. She’s sweet and so are so many others of these kids and parents that I have become so close to and embraced as my family away from home this year. It was an exhausting day, but also just fun and great to be with so many of these families that I’ve spent so much time with in the last ten and a half months.

And besides all these memories that I have from this day, I also right now get to have a physical reminder of the soccer match… Near the end of the first half of the game, I was going to kick the ball hard to try to make a goal. Our field is not so good here at the Center and so instead of kicking the ball, I kicked this big rock that was sticking out of the field. It was a bit painful so I stopped playing and my big toe just became huge and all black and blue. There was no ice, so I bought lots of Bon Ice (Mr. Freeze Pops) to keep it cold and try to numb it…and keep lots of kids sugar high as I would buy them one too if they went to get me one! Well, as it turns out I spent my 4th of July at the ER and from X-rays found out I did fracture my big toe. : ( So it is in a metal splint now for the next 2 weeks…and after 5 days I am already going crazy! I stumble along so slow and that is if I am being bad and not using the crutches, which are just killer. I tell you this Lord I love is pretty crazy sometimes. I really want to be out there running around with the kids and traveling with the other volunteers, but I guess it is time for me to slow down a bit, recover, and just take it all in from the side lines. (Yikes, which most of you know is NOT at all me, but I guess this whole year is about growing – even until the very end!)

Despite this annoying little toe thing though, it was a great weekend and time with the volunteers and Center families! Really it hasn’t totally sunk in yet, but I actually already had to say goodbye to 2 volunteers yesterday so it’s starting. Just trying to live each day though and love it while I’m still here.

Please pray for me to have patience and to be a good patient ;) Also, pray for Lauren and Joe who are already home and those leaving soon in their adjustment time back in the US.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Putting things in perspective...

Yesterday was the 6th grade (grade school) graduation in La Marin and of course they are a pretty big deal, like anywhere. As I was watching all the kids get their diplomas though, I started thinking a little more. My middle school graduation was a huge deal, but honestly there was no question that I would be passing 8th grade and even high school. Both of my parents are college educated and so therefore even the idea of going to college or not never even crossed my mind. Here though, the other volunteers and I teach adult classes - which are literacy classes for those adults that do not even have a primary school education. When I saw 3 of my adult students' children receive awards for being first in their respective grades and then the 25 6th graders graduating, it put it in perspective for me that this really is a big deal! Finishing elementary school already puts most of them way ahead of their parents and on track to get out of poverty. Just a little thought....

Bittersweet (but it will be fun) weekend ahead!