Thankful

Well, at least this time I actually have a good reason for not having blogged in so long – my computer charger broke a couple weeks ago and I had to make do for a while borrowing my host family’s computer and other people’s Mac chargers. That is, until I finally realized that Apple has a WORLDWIDE warranty (duh) and I went by the Apple Tech store a mere 15-minute walk from my apartment, whereupon they presented me with a brand-new, free charger in less than 24 hours. This happened on Thanksgiving, which seemed appropriate since I’ve never been SO thankful for Apple’s stellar customer service! (haha).

Okay, so that’s not actually the ONLY reason I haven’t blogged in a while...the truth is, the past three weeks have continued to feel challenging, tense, and at times I would even say quite painful. I’ve been dealing with battles both internal and external (without going into detail) that have exhausted me and discouraged me even more. My motivation to do ANYTHING other than watch movies or go to the gym is I would say at an all-time low, a result of dealing with these “battles” and feeling continually homesick. So yes…that’s the truth. I know that I’m “learning” and “growing” and “being stretched” – but to be honest, it doesn’t really feel worth it right now, and it’s not actually that much of an encouragement, at least in this moment.

A few weeks ago I finished reading Shauna Niequist’s book Bittersweet, a collection of short stories and “thoughts on change, grace, and learning the hard way” – and as you might be able to infer from this description, it could not have been a more PERFECT book for me to read this semester. You know when you read a book or watch a movie or hear a song, and it just completely describes or depicts or embodies how you are feeling, what you are going through, what you are thinking to yourself – or, sometimes, it’s just exactly what you needed to hear – to know that you’re not alone? This book was that for me. This passage, in particular, is what I needed to hear and be reminded of. It’s long, but I’m putting in the whole thing, just in case maybe it’s what you need to hear too :)

“I used to think that the growth we experience through pain, physical or not, was a consolation prize. I thought that what we really want are easy lives, and if we can’t have those, then we can at least become deep, grounded people who grow through heartbreak. But I don’t know anyone who has an easy life forever. Everyone I know gets their heart broken sometime, by something. The question is not, will my life be easy or will my heart break? But rather, when my heart breaks, will I choose to grow? Sometimes in the moments of the most searing pain, we think we don’t have a choice. But we do. It’s in those moments that we make the most important choice: grow or give up. It’s easy to want to give up under the weight of what we’re carrying. It seems sometimes like the only possible choice. But there’s always, always another choice, and transformation is waiting for us just beyond that choice. This is what I know: God can make something beautiful out of anything, out of darkness and trash and broken bones. He can shine light into even the blackest night, and he leaves us glimpses of hope. New life and new beauty are all around us, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be seen.”

So, even though there have been a few points along the way where I’ve given up (okay, maybe more than a few), today I’ve chosen and I’m choosing to find something beautiful. And in the spirit of it being Thanksgiving week, I’m choosing to be thankful. I’m thankful that this week I received an RA position for next semester – a job that I really wanted. I’m thankful for someone finding my keys and phone and sending them back to me. I’m thankful for my always-loving host family. I’m thankful for my elderly friend Gonzalo and our sweet coffee dates. I’m thankful for a Thanksgiving celebration that – while not quite the same as being home – was still joyous and festive and DELICIOUS. And, of course, I’m thankful for Apple’s worldwide warranty :)

                            Me and Gonzalo at our café                       Me, my host mom, and host sister 

                                                                                                                        at Thanksgiving dinner

Happy Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas season!!

Esmeraldas

It’s long overdue, but here’s a summary (mostly in pictures) of our brief 3-day trip to the Afro-Ecuadorian community of Playa de Oro (from the weekend of Nov. 10-12):

We took a red-eye bus ride Wednesday night and arrived 9 hours later on Thursday morning at the coastal community, a bit bleary-eyed and sweating up a storm from the heat and humidity. It all seemed very reminiscent of the Amazon, as we took a similar canoe ride down to the village where we were staying. When we got there, were greeted by some of the community members with traditional music, an enthusiastic welcome, and a huge, delicious lunch of fried fish and rice (we ate lots of wonderful fresh seafood throughout the weekend!)

Needless to say we were all pretty exhausted, so the rest of the day was spent chatting about history and traditions. Basically, the ancestors of this particular community were brought sometime in the late 1700s from Africa and enslaved with the purpose of extracting gold from the river basin. Oral history, poetry, and music is also important to the community, so we heard from a local man about their way of documenting history through a type of poem called a décima, and listened to a bit of traditional Marimba music.

On Friday we took a hike through the jungle (which included an exciting spotting by one of our guides of a tiger footprint – luckily they’re nocturnal!), and went swimming in a beautiful laguna next to a little waterfall. On our way back, we stopped at one of the rocky beaches and learned (very basically) how to pan for gold. We also had a lesson back at the community of how to make sugar from sugar cane – an extremely physically strenuous process!

          

That night we had a big fiesta with members of the community, complete with traditional music (both their upbeat Marimba music as well as a rather pathetic rendition of some “traditional American music” from us..) and Marimba dance.

The next morning we left the community and ate lunch at the house of Papa Roncón, a legendary marimba-player and story-teller of the Esmeraldas region. The marimba music and dance is a beautiful example and symbol of the many ways in which the Afro community is dedicated to preserving their roots and traditions. Papa Roncón was very charismatic and welcoming, and after another seafood-filled lunch and an hour of music-making with Papa, we started the long journey back to Quito.

...and coming up next weekend: GALÁPAGOS!

Quilotoa

Last week was a “feriado” in Quito, meaning a holiday break! Wednesday was Día de los Muertos and Thursday was Cuenca Independence Day (which I’m pretty sure is just used as an excuse to not have school/work for the rest of the week after Day of the Dead). Anyways, pretty much everyone in Ecuador takes the 5-day weekend to travel, and of course we did as well! Instead of going away for the whole 5 days though, a group of us opted to avoid the mass crowds and traffic and instead just head for a couple of days to the highly-recommended Quilotoa Volcano/Crater Lake, about 4 hours from the outskirts of Quito. The trip ended up being so fun and Quilotoa was even more beautiful than I could have imagined, and it was the perfect amount of time to be gone.

The Quilotoa lake is inside a volcanic crater, and the locals claim that the lake is “bottomless” (though geologists say that it is actually about 820 ft. deep…either way, not jumping in there!) We were up even higher than Quito in elevation (it’s about 12,800 ft. at the top of the crater) and it’s extremely cold and windy – but the incredible view was well worth it!

On Friday morning we woke up bright and early to begin our venture on what we thought was a 6-hour hike around the lake. However, we naively assumed that the “Quilotoa loop” that everyone talks about was at the BASE of the lake, and it was not until we had hiked all the way down the crazy-steep crater to the edge of the water that we realized the “loop” is not in fact at the bottom but rather at the EDGE of the crater, back at the top. Well, whoops! As we looked fearfully up at the ominous hill we had just come down, I joked, “Well, what goes down must come back up!” (Can’t say I’ve ever said that on a hike before…a bit counter-intuitive!) But, in the end, we all made it up just fine and felt very accomplished and fit when we reached the top!

Naturally though, once we got back to the top of the crater we had little desire to start all over on a new 6-hour trek, so we decided to hike instead for a couple hours along the REAL loop, eat lunch at a scenic spot somewhere along the way, and then turn back around. A few hours later we hopped on a bus back to Quito, and arrived back at our homes around dinnertime.

(Back at the top!)

This coming weekend, our whole group is heading to Playa de Oro in the coastal Esmeraldas region for a program excursion. The unit we are currently studying in our core course is “the Afro-Andean Diaspora,” so we will be visiting a native community on the coast and learning more about the history and rights movements of the Afro-Ecuadorian communities (as well as hitting the beach for a few hours!) Check back for a summary of the trip next week!