Ecuador Day 14: Mitad del Mundo (again), and the Second Day of Classes

Today, we got to spend the morning going to Mitad del Mundo. The reason for going is that Cindy had some shopping she wanted to do, and there's a paila shop there I wanted to visit again. It was a win-win situation in my book. I was really only tagging along for the paila, but I figured that it would be fun to look around in some of the stores I hadn't gone to on my last visit. One store had a really great winter hat that's ridiculously long. I thought it was pretty fantastic, and the shop owner came down to $4.00 so I figured it was worth it. We looked around in several other shops and the only thing that really caught my eye was a three foot tall llama made out of real llama. It was really soft and awesome. I figured that it might fit in my suitcase and I could name it Rowdy. Then I realized that it had to be at least $200, or probably more. That nixed that idea.

We then stopped at a restaurant there to get really fantastic empanadas as a snack. The bonus is that there's a music store next door to it so I popped in there while we were waiting on our food. I realize that I have very little willpower in a music store, but I did want to see what they had. I was thrilled to see that there was nothing there that I really wanted. The reason is that I already own most of the instruments they were selling. It also made me realize just how many I've purchased on previous trips.

After empanadas, Karen and Cindy went to try to find blankets in the size Cindy really wanted. Jon and I went over to the monument to get my picture in front of it "holding" the ball that's on top. We kept hoping that Elvira and her husband would open up their shop before we left. As luck would have it, they were just opening their shop when we headed over to the paila shop. We went in and thankfully they had blankets in the size Cindy had wanted. As it turns out, they are the only shop there who still carries the smaller ones. I realized at this point how little willpower I really have. They offered the blankets at such a good price that I got one. Then Jon pointed out the really cool ponchos that they are now selling. They’re made out of llama fur and are really soft. I ended up having to get one too. Then Karen found another awesome hat that they offered to sell me for a mere $2.50. You can't say no to a deal like that. At least I can't… Thankfully I got out of there without too much damage to my wallet.

Me at the Mitad del Mundo monument

We grabbed some paila and then headed to the house to chill for a little bit before seminary later in the day. There was even enough time for me to take a short nap before heading off to teach.

I planned to spend the next two days talking about Islam. This is not something I had planned to teach on, but Jon said that Islam is starting to be talked about some in Ecuador and it would be helpful for the students to be aware of the basic beliefs and practices of Islam. I had planned to spend the lecture talking about the history of Islam saving the major beliefs and the 5 Pillars for tomorrow. I once again underestimated how quickly we could go through several pages of notes.

After talking about the history of Islam, we still had 20 minutes left. Yikes! I was still finishing up my material for tomorrow, but I had already had my notes for the 5 pillars of Islam. We spent the rest of the time talking about those. As we were talking about the daily prayers and the Hajj, it occurred to me that most of the students have never seen any pictures or videos of either of these. I asked them if they'd like me to try to find a video for tomorrow of Muslims praying. They said the would, so I hunted down a video clip later in the evening. Hopefully it will go over well.

Instead of sitting in on Cindy's class, I spent the rest of the evening in the library working on my material for the rest of the week. While I had a good idea of what I was going to talk about for the basic beliefs in Islam, I hadn't finished putting it together yet. Before I'm called a slacker, which I know I am at times, I didn't know I would be teaching on it until I'd been here several days. So really, I'd only been procrastinating for a few days. I prefer to call it ruminating…

After classes were done for the day, we headed back to the house to eat supper, prepare for the next day, and most importantly go to bed. Seminary week is much more tiring than I had expected. On the plus side, we'll get to sleep in tomorrow because we can't go anywhere until at least 9:30 because of Pico y Placa. This is something that has been started by the government in the past few months. One day a week, you cannot drive into the city 7:30-9:30AM and 4:30-7:30PM. This is based upon the last digit of your license, and serves to reduce the number of personal vehicles driving in Quito during rush hour by 20%. While annoying at times, it really does make traffic lighter during rush hour. The worse thing about it is that the paila shop near the house closes at 7:30, which means no paila on Wednesdays. As it would so happen, the day I most want paila on seems to be Wednesdays. At least I got some at Mitad today!

Ecuador Day 11: Meeting and More Shoes

The past few days have been very busy. Saturday started off with the National Committee meeting at their office at the seminary. It was great to meet many of the pastors. Some of them I'd only met once or twice several years ago, and some of them I'd never even seen before. The Lamberts translated for us some, and I was able to pick up enough on my own to at least have an idea of what was going on. It was a meeting though, which means it can only stay interesting for so long.

We had planned to go back to the house to grab some food before picking up the shoes for Hands 4 Ecuador's Happy Feet program, but the National Committee had other plans. They decided to treat everyone at the meeting to lunch down the street. I'm still not sure where the money came from, but the food was very good. We went to a small restaurant that is close to the Seminary. The food was roast chicken, rice with beans (can't remember what the dish is called), french fries, and cole slaw. It was a neat experience. I'd wanted to eat at a place like that for quite a while, so it was nice to finally do that.

With lunch out of the way, we headed off to the shoe store to pick up 300 pairs of shoes. Mariano went with us to help us load and unload them as well as get a truck for us. I would say that it took longer than I expected to get the shoes, but that would be a lie. At this point, I'm getting pretty used to the concept of Ecuadorian time. While we were waiting, we found some more shoes on sail, so Karen and Cindy picked out another 14 pairs of shoes bringing the total to, I think, 344 pairs. One interesting thing we noted was that the price tag on last years shoes were $26. The same shoes this year cost $36. That's a huge increase in just one year! Because of the increased price of shoes, school has just gotten much more expensive for families, and it makes it much harder for many families to send their kids to school.

The best part of dropping the shoes off at the Seminary was that we planned to get paila afterward. Have I mentioned how much I love paila? It's pretty awesome stuff!

Jon and Cindy showing off their paila

We took Mariano with us to help thank him for all of his hard work. He said he'd only had paila once while he was in the military. I think he's as big a fan of it as I am!

Mariano and his delicious paila

We spent the rest of the day at the house working on our lessons for seminary and just relaxing a little bit. We knew that Sunday would be a long day. Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we didn't need to go to Ofelia for church so we discussed where we'd like to go. We decided on Zabala once we realized that it would be their anniversary celebration. The downside was that the service starts at 8:30 so we'd need to leave by 8:00. Oh well, I figured it'd be worth it.

Ecuador Days 8, 9, and 10: Shoes, Seminary, and Ceviche

It's been several days since I posted partly because we've been somewhat busy, but I haven't had a great deal to post. Part of the reason for this is that a family that is moving from Quito to Orlando stayed with us for several days. The husband is from Ecuador and the wife is from Illinois. Their kids, while American citizens, have grown up in Quito and are essentially Ecuadorian. They owned a hair salon here catering mainly to Americans. As Americans have left the country due to the government here being less friendly to Americans and American business, their business has declined. Because of this, they've felt that moving back to the United States is a better option for them and their family. It's been interesting seeing the family saying their goodbyes to friends and family here while preparing to transition to life in another country. Their kids were asking me lots of questions about what it's like to live in America and what Orlando is like. While they've travel to the US some to visit family, they've never spent a significant amount of time there. To make matters even tougher, they are not Christians. They Lamberts have spent years developing a relationship with them, but they have not been terribly open to Christ. My prayers go out for them during this time of transition that they not only find Christ, but that they find a place to settle and jobs.

Their last night here, we all went to a restaurant called La Ronda. La Ronda is a restaurant that serves traditional Ecuadorian food. Fritada is one of their specialties as well as a very traditional Ecuadorian dish. I decided to order that and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Fritada is a dish that is made of pork that has been boiled and then fried. It was served with fried bananas, a type of corn cake, and hominy. I've had hominy multiple times, and have never been a fan until this time. It was pretty fantastic. My only complaint about it was that it had quite a bit of cilantro on it and I'm not the biggest fan of cilantro. Over all though, I was a big fan of the food. I would eat there again in a heartbeat!

The best part of the restaurant was the live music. They had a group of six men who went table to table playing traditional Andean music. They were all dressed in matching ponchos and hats, and played quite a variety of instruments. They had guys playing quenas, pan flutes, guitars, drums, and even a charango. One of the guys who played the charango played it the fastest I've ever seen. It was truly impressive. They were not the only life music though. There was also a group of three guys who played Spanish guitar and sang ballads. They were quite excellent as well. It was a truly enjoyable experience.

The next day (Wednesday) after the families departure to the airport, we headed out to run errands. Our first stop was at a shoe store to price out school shoes. Hands for Ecuador has been raising the money to buy school shoes for children in the churches here. They had hoped to raise enough money to buy 220 pairs of shoes. Cindy called a couple of days before to tell us that they had managed to raise more than $5,300. With this number in mind, we set off to see how many shoes could be bought with this money and to put a deposit down. After picking out styles for both younger and older boys and girls as well as sizes, one of the salespeople set off to see how much 200 pairs would cost. He came back 15-20 minutes later with the quote, and we realized we could buy at least another hundred pairs. The salesman went off and came back a few minutes later with his total. 305 pairs of shoes came out to just under $5000. This meant that we still had $300 left to spend. While he had been putting together the quote, we had been looking around the shoe store and found some really awesome shoes that looked like Chuck Taylors and had dinosaurs all over them. I'm still kind of wanting them… Anywho, we also found a clearance rack with some shoes from last year. All of them were 50% off. Karen told the guy to get us every pair he could find as long as the total was under $300. Several minutes later, we were walking to the register with another 30 pairs of school shoes, the most expensive of which was $10. Keep in mind that all of these shoes are made of leather and are pretty good quality. Karen paid for the shoes and then put down a deposit on the rest of the shoes. The salesman seemed pretty excited for his sale and event through in 200 plastic rulers with the Bunky logo (the shoe manufacture) on them. We'll had back tomorrow to pick up the other 305 pairs of shoes.

After that, we grabbed lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then headed to the Seminary so Jon could attend a short meeting. While he did that, I helped Karen go through all of the Children of Promise files to look up the birth dates of all of the children in the program. I enjoyed getting to see all of their pictures and hearing about some of them. Some of them, like the kids at Meridiano, have grown up a great deal since I last saw them nearly 8 years ago. It was also a good time to learn more at the Children of Promise program. I didn't realize just how little I knew about it.

After Jon's meeting, we headed back to the house. They worked in the office some and I studied some for my upcoming classes. I might have read a little bit of Harry Potter as well. Ok, I read a little bit of Harry Potter. After Danny got home from working at the hospital, we had supper. As we were finishing up, Jon was commenting about how nice it would be to have some paila for dessert. Sadly, there was no place to get paila nearby, or so we thought. Danny told us there was a place only a few minutes away that looked pretty good. That was enough for us. We grabbed our shoes, jumped in the car, and were off with Danny at the wheel. As we got there, the owners were just leaving the shop and were in the process of locking the doors. We inquired about their hours, and it turns out they close at 7:30 and we had gotten there at 7:35. They then told us we'd be welcome to still come in and get some if we'd like. They had a ton of flavors to pick from. I ended up getting a scoop of taxo and a scoop of guanábana served in a tulipan. A tulipan is an edible ice cream bowl that looks a little bit like a tulip. All I can say about the paila was that it was absolutely delicious. It wasn't as pretty as the one I had at Mitad del Mundo, and didn't have all of the extras on it, but it didn't need it. I suspect I will be getting paila there at least another couple of times before I leave Ecuador.

On Thursday, Jon and I started off the morning by heading to the Seminary to drop a hand truck off so that Mariano could go get the gas cylinders filled for the kitchen at the seminary. Mariano is the man who was stabbed, thrown off a cliff, and left to die several years ago. I've only met him briefly before now. Our next stop was Mega Kywi. Mega Kywi is the largest hardware store in the city. It may be the largest in the country (Jon isn't sure if the one in Guayaquil is bigger).

Mega Kywi is a lot like a Home Depot or a Lowes. They have just about everything you could need ranging from desk to plants to mowers to hardware. The biggest difference between Mega Kywi and hardware stores in the US is the prices. Many items such as lawnmowers are much more expensive here than they are at home. Karen pointed out to me later that while the prices may be significantly higher, at least you can get all of these things now. In the past, it was almost impossible to get much of what Mega Kywi carries. On the way back to the car, we stopped by a little stand that had really great vanilla cake donuts. Jon knows of all the best food places around!

After our trip to the store, we headed back to the Seminary to drop stuff off. We had purchased a desk and a file cabinet for the office, so we left those with Mariano to put together. Then we headed home for lunch, and what a lunch it was! Karen had cooked ceviche for lunch. Ceviche is a traditional Ecuadorian soup that is served cold. Karen made ceviche that was tomato based with shrimp and chochos in it. Chochos are a type of bean that you can only get here. It was very, very good.

After lunch, we headed back to the Seminary so that Jon could meet with some installers who are putting in internet at the Seminary. The internet they're getting is the cheapest available. It's 256K and cost $80/month! It's still cheaper than the other option which was a blazing 512K and cost a mere $175 a month. When the told me the cost of the more expensive one, I about fell over. That just seems like highway robbery to me.

Once we were done with the installers, we headed to Santa Clara to hit up the market to buy some pots and pans for the seminary. Some of the cooking utensils have a habit of walking off, and some larger pots and pans were needed so that the cooks can prepare food for more than 40 people. We went to three different shops to compare prices and ended up getting some stuff at each one. With that out of the way, we headed to Bosque, one of the malls in the area. We went to a computer store first to purchase an ethernet cable for the Seminary. I was expecting it to be really expensive, but a 10 foot cable was only $4. It turns out that the cable is imported, but is not considered a luxury item. Because of that, computer cables can be made here very cheaply. While Jon was buying the cable, Karen noticed a rack of jackets on sale for $10 a piece. She looked at all of them and mentioned that they'd make great Christmas presents for some of the older girls in Children of Promise. She ended up picking out 10 of them. It was fun helping play Santa for some of the kids. We're hoping to hit up the Christian bookstore soon to pick up presents for the rest of the children while the store still has some good stuff in. We then ate dinner at the food court in the mall.

We ate supper in front of some big windows that face out over part of Quito as well as the airport. As the sun went down, we noticed that one of the valleys out past the airport was positively glowing. Over the next 15 or so minutes, we watched the light creep up the side of the mountains. The light turned everything gold and it cast deep shadows helping to see the topography of the land. Sadly, the show was over pretty quickly. The sun sets and rises incredibly fast here on the equator. Once we were done eating, we wandered into a movie store for a few minutes. They sell DVDs for $2.50 each, and have tons of them. They also sell games for computers and many gaming systems (also for $2.50). You can guess where the DVDs come from. It seemed funny to me to see two such stores in one mall.

Once we were finished at the mall, we headed back to the house for the evening. I worked a little bit on stuff for my classes and then played on the computer some. We had hoped to get some paila, but were not able to make it to the shop before they were closed. Maybe next time…

Today, I've just hung around the house reading for school and for fun and worked on finishing up my lectures. I also did some laundry while I had the chance because life starts getting much busier tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the meeting of the National Committee. We also need to run pick up the rest of the shoes, all 305 pairs of them. Sunday, we're going to church at Ofelia where Jon will preach both services. Then we have to go to the Seminary to register people for the week and then have a worship service for the seminary tomorrow night at Comite. Classes begin on Monday and run through the rest of the week. It's going to be an adventure!

Ecuador Day 4: Rumicucho and Mitad del Mundo

Today was supposed to be the monthly meeting with all of the pastors, or so we thought. It turns out that July as 31 days in it, and the meeting isn't until next week. This meant that we had more free time than expected. The Lamberts had the idea of taking me to Rumicucho, which are some Inca ruins. Because it's so dry and dusty, only Jon and I went, but I was still pretty excited. I had been here about 8 years before, but a lot of excavations and reconstruction has taken place since then. You can now see quite a few foundations and get an idea for the layout of the place.

On the way there, we drove past a Catholic church that looked like no church I had seen before. Jon explained that this is a good model of the syncretism that tends to happen here, especially in the Catholic church. As you can see in the picture, the front of the church pays honor to Jesus (observe the cross on each steeple), the sun god, mother earth, and then there's a rainbow which is from the local indigenous religion. Unfortunately, they were setting tents up outside for some big shindig so I was not able to get a picture that didn't have some glare from all of the white fabric. I found this fascinating because this is a subject I've studied a fair amount in school. It would be really interesting to observe a service there.


Our next stop was Rumicucho. This place looks very different from the first time I was there. There's now an entrance fee (very minimal), a gate house (that was not manned), a little store, sings, and marked pathways. I'm thankful I went to Israel first, because it enabled me to have a better appreciation for this site. For one thing, there were pottery shards everywhere, and I spotted many of them without any effort.


Another reason is that it was easier to spot gates, outer walls, and storage rooms. That's right, there were rooms that most people believe were for storage right beside most of the gates. The main reason, though, is that I was able to appreciate just how important it's location, the surrounding geography, and the topography are.


This site is located on a hill that allows the primary entrance to Quito to be observed from all of the approaches. Not only that, but the pass that leads to the coast can also be observed from here. It is thought that it was a garrison with 300-500 soldiers living there to protect that area. More importantly, Incas were not the first people to use that area. There is evidence that people groups before them lived there as well.



After spending a while at Rumicucho, we made our way to Mitad del Mundo. The primary reason for going there is that I could knock out most of my shopping without having to go to Otavalo. Jon took me to a shop that is owned by a Christian couple he knows. I actually went there with him on my last trip to Ecuador, but that was four years before. He introduced me to them and chatted with them for a little while. They were very friendly, and even gave us bottles of water. Besides giving my business to a Christian family that the Lamberts know, I also enjoy that shop because bargaining isn't necessary. They give us the bottom price from the get go which means that the whole process is faster. The shopping experience was a pleasure, and they had everything I had come there looking for. The only down side is that I wanted to buy more than I did. Especially the striped pants they make here. I already have at least eight pairs of them though, so I was strong. It was hard to do though, I'm not gonna lie.

When we finished up there, Jon suggested we get ice cream. We went to a shop that has ice cream and paila. Paila is kind of the Ecuadorian answer to sorbet, but it is much better. It is made primarily from fruit juice. They had little cups, so Jon asked if we could get our two scoops in those. They said sure, and we put in our order. I got one scoop of mora, and one scoop of something whose name I don't recall at the moment. They asked us to sit at a table and they'd bring it to us when it was ready. Several minutes went by, and we were wondering if they would ever bring it to us. When the paila came out, it was covered in mora and chocolate sauces, whipped cream, and topped with a strawberry and a cookie. All of this for only $2 each! It was amazing. I was ready to get another one.

Paila=awesomeness!

As we were eating ice cream, Jon asked if I'd like to see rhinoceros beetles. I'm always up to see bugs, so we mosied over to the insectarium. It turns out that it's been there for several years now, but we didn't know it was there. They had tons of mounted insects and arachnids as well as some live tarantulas, hercules beetles, and rhinoceros beetles. For a mere $2, a man will place several of the large beetles on you, snap a picture, and print it out for you. That sounded like a deal to me, so I decided to do it. These things were huge and awesome! We asked if I could hold the largest one, and he got that out too. I need to scan the picture so I can post it. It was an excellent experience. I'm ready to get one for a pet! Once that was out of the way, we wondered around the edge of the room looking at all of the fantastic mounted critters. They had plenty of mounted butterflies, but they had something more exciting than that. In the Amazon, there is a large, green bug that legend holds will kill you in 24 hours once it bites you. The only remedy is to have sex within the 24 hours. One of its nicknames is the "sex bug." I've heard stories of it here, but I'd never seen it before. They had three different ones mounted. The thing is big, but I was disappointed because it was brown, not green. It turns out that it looses its color once it dies. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but they didn't allow us to take pictures inside.

Our last stop was also in Mitad del Mundo. They have a model of the Old City of Quito that is only open at certain times during the day. We walked over to see if it would be opening any time soon, and the door swung open just as we walked in. It was interesting to see the city from that perspective. They also slowly lowered the lights as if sunset was happening, and all of the little buildings lit up. After a couple of minutes, the lights slowly came up starting in the East and we were back to daylight. It was a cool little exhibit.

Overall, it was a very eventful day. I'm really looking forward to church at Ofelia tomorrow. It should be a fun service!