Ecuador - July 25, 2011

I slept straight through until 8:20 am.  Beth had to wake me up for breakfast, and that's an anomaly.  I'm usually up early.  Breakfast today was french toast and sausage (again, Kim is trying very hard to balance the Ecuadorian food with American choices, which I think I can safely say we all appreciate very much).


Sadly, Luke was down for the count today, so I went all "Mom" on him (trying, of course, not to annoy him too much or overstep Harold - I just wanted to let him know that I was the "Mom" in his corner if he needed me).  I gave him the prescribed Gatorade/bottle-of-water-in-an-hour treatment that Faith had prescribed for the girls. He was well into the Gatorade bottle when he barfed, so he had to start all over again.  


A small group (Beth, Sheila, Dan, Oscar, Britt, Rach, Tay-Tay, Megs - not sure who else) from Team Ecuador headed in to Santo Domingo to meet the Compassion International sponsored kids, so the rest of us were left behind at IPEE to do "work" projects."  Lavonne was the supervisor at camp.


First, we picked up the garbage in the courtyard.  You may not think this is a big deal, but with almost 300 campers running around a very small area all weekend, significant amounts of garbage were generated.  Then, our task was to move all the beds to the center of the rooms so that painting of the dorms could begin.  Rocky, Nick, Karen, Ashley, Mike, Harold, Becca, Erika, and I did that.  Additionally, we swept the floors of the dorms partially in preparation for painting and also because there was a lot of garbage that had been left in the dorms.  Even though I wasn't too excited to do it, I emptied the "wipe" buckets in the bathrooms, which by now, were pretty ripe due to the extreme heat and humidity.  After that, I picked out the garbage that had been left behind in the showers as well.  Faith Johnson cleaned toilets, and Dan mopped.


Deb, Morgan, Jess, Haylee prepared the crafts for the VBS that we would be completing for the week.  They put beads in baggies and generally got everything organized and ready to go.  


Erika and Becca volunteered to paint the white on the goal posts and fencing in the yard.  It was a miserable task for them, largely because it was all out in the open.  There was no protection from the sun, so they were going to have to guzzle water like no man's business in order to stay on their feet.  


Rocky, Harold, Mike A, and Nick scraped and painted the side of the dorms (green) while Mike B, Ashley, Karen, Catherine, Richard, and I painted two dorm rooms (butter-colored).  A word about painting in Ecuador:  In order to stretch the paint to make it more cost effective, the Ecuadorians add water to the paint.  Likewise, there are no handles on the paint cans and no stir sticks, so Ashley and Richard used their arms as stir sticks in the five-gallon buckets.  By the time they finished, they both looked as though they were wearing long gloves.  Anyway, since the paint was pretty thin, it was very runny, and it looked more as though we had done a wash versus a paint.  Painting took until about 1:10, and Richard called it quits since it was close to lunch time.


Finally, Sheila and Rachel returned from town to fetch the rest of us to go to La Restauracion church for VBS.  Apparently, the whole Compassion thing hadn't fallen through, so they had spent the morning at La Restauracion with the kiddos.


The painters all cooled and cleaned off in the river.  We also cleaned out brushes, rollers, and pails at the same time in the river.  Yeah, I realize what an environmental train wreck that was.  After drying off, we had lunch, which consisted of fish (Rocky and Rachel were the beneficiaries of mine), rice, veggies, and fried plantain.  Even though I took a "bye" on the fish, I ate the rest of it.  Yes, I know that I have crossed the border and finally become a big girl by drinking coffee; there is hope that I will put on my big girl panties in the future and start eating fish.

By 2:45, we were on our way back to Santo Domingo to La Restauracion, which ended up literally being a hole in the wall of the downtown area.  Without sounding derogatory, La Restauracion is basically two long garage stalls, side by side.  The right side is like the sanctuary as there is a staged platform up front.  The left side houses two "Sunday school-sized" rooms, and there is a kitchen in the back.  This kitchen is where the Compassion International meals are made three times per week, but more about that later.

Just as soon as the bus was in park, Oscar was standing by the door, telling us to "Just love them."  Right behind him was Michael and Diego, our pals from camp.  They ran up to us and gave us the hugs of our lives.  In fact, all of the kids were excited to see us.  That seems to be the case wherever we go.  We always get greeted as if they had been waiting ten years to see us.  Mike and Nick instantly and randomly started giving kids piggy back rides.

Monica

Rafael, pastor of La Restauracion, got the ball rolling along with his wife, who is also a pastor, Monica.  They started with music.  We sang a song together, and then, Megs and Tay-Tay and Britt led the kids in two songs that they had learned that morning.  After that, it was go-time for crafts and games.  There wasn't a whole lot of space in which to work.  The games people had to do their thing in basically a garage stall, but it worked.  

For crafts, we made necklaces and craft stick picture frames.  Sheila was taking pictures and printing them as fast as she could go while Dan and Faith Johnson, Mike Buer, and Lavonne or maybe Morgan glued picture frames together.  Deb and Morgan gave the instructions on how to make the necklaces while Ashley and I helped the kids tie them off and put them together.

Once it was all over, the Ecuadorian boys again swarmed the Willmar girls - lots and lots of pictures.  We left La Restauracion at about 6:30 pm.  I can't really say that I enjoyed the whole VBS thing since I am not a huge fan of little kids; teenagers are more my speed, which is why I enjoyed camp so much  more. Plus, loud and chaotic are not two of my favorite words, and that is kind of what our first attempt at VBS felt like.  Likewise, other than the music, our VBS really didn't address any aspect of the spiritual realm.  Yeah, we had fun with the kids by playing games and making crafts, but there was no connection to Jesus, God or salvation.  So I'm not sure if our purpose was largely just to hang out and build relationships only, or if we were supposed to try to introduce them to basic faith elements as well.  In any case, it's clear that the kids had a good time with us, so that's good.

We returned to IPEE for some down time.  Supper was late on this night - 8:00 pm, and we had steak, rice, a potato-like paste, and beans.  Unfortunately, Luke had not improved throughout the day as he now was suffering from "revenge on the other end" in addition to puking.  Rocky, too, went down.  He came to supper with chills and a fever, so we sent him packing to bed with his water bottle as well.  Deb, too, is feeling queasy, so now, everyone is looking at each other, wondering who will go next.  Part of it is our own fault; we aren't being smart about this.  We've had several late nights and early mornings, which isn't doing anybody any favors since we are wearing ourselves out and setting ourselves up for illness.  Likewise, working in the hot sun today (the painters) was a poor choice.  If we're going to paint, it should be done in the early morning only when it's not so hot.  Plus, we all need to be absolutely aggressive about chugging the water.  


The final task for the day was circle time.  After supper, we formed a large circle, and each person shared an observation about camp over the weekend. I'll admit that I was kind of ticked off about having to do circle time when everyone was clearly shot, but I'll also admit that it was interesting and cool to listen to everyone's observations.  Each individual brings something new and unique to the table, so it's very rewarding to walk away from circle time with a "nugget of wisdom" to mull over.  Oscar, especially, is really good at throwing out a perspective or observation that no one had considered.  His perspective is invaluable in helping the group to grow through the experiences we've had.  At first, there was talk that we were going to break into small groups instead for circle time, and small groups are more intimate and have their value, but the large group sharing on this night seemed to be a better choice with regard to group bonding.  We hadn't had much time to de-program after the intensity of camp, so we needed that.