Day 8 and 9 - Hard Labor

I was not able to get a post for yesterday so todays will be extra inclusive. Titled "Hard Labor," this post starts with the description of the work we did yesterday. We started out working on the school by shoveling big barrel full of rocks and then carrying them to the second floor of the new school building. I don't know if you have ever shoveled rocks before, but it is not the easiest manual labor to do. The only thing I would say is harder when it comes to shoveling would be shoveling rocks out of dirt and mud which is what we did after. 

Essentially, there was a road and that road was getting flooded every time it rained so to fix the problem, the road was dug out and a big concrete tube was put in to let the water go through. Mine and the teams job was to put all the dirt and rocks back in the whole to recreate the road. This is very difficult when all you have is shovels and no bobcat or tractors. We could get one of those but they are expensive, and why do that when you have a team of college students to do it for you? haha. So it was fun shoveling rocks back into this whole that was probably 30 feet long, 6 feet deep, and 10 feet wide. The rocks we were shoveling were some of them even to big to pick up with just one person. Since there are only two guys in the group, all the heavy lifting naturally fell to myself and Zach. 

It was a good time though. All in all it wasn't that bad either because after lunch, I was done and got to go teach PE. The team was not so lucky. After their lunch, they start working some more. Now in my defense, I have been here longer and will remain about 7 more weeks after they leave on Saturday so I don't feel too bad. I do feel a tiny bit bad though leaving them after lunch to teach PE haha. However, as any mom will tell you, wrangling 10 elementary age kids that don't speak your language and trying to teach them a sport is not the easiest thing in the world either. 

Also, since I have been here a while and know all the maestros, Freddie, the head construction worker, told me to be in charge of the team. It felt good that he trusted me to "steer" as he called it (He was looking for the word manage which I taught him). So that was cool kinda being the go to guy for questions that the team had. I was really just keeping them from asking Freddie all the questions and in truth, I probably don't know much more than they do but as the weeks go by I will know more and more. I am seen as having a little more experience, even if it is only one or two days. I have learned a lot too and am actually thankful for the hard work. It builds character as my parents say. The rock digging went on yesterday and today and now I think we are finished. It does feel nice to step back and look at the road now and know that we accomplished something so that is really good. 

For dinner last night, all the longer workers went over to Meagan's house for pasta. I swung by the store to grab some noodles then headed over to help cook them. They were really good. Meagan made homemade meatballs, marinara sauce, pesto sauce, and alfredo sauce, all of which were amazing. I ate way too much. Dwight has a calorie counter on his phone that he uses and he figured that he ate about 1900 calories for dinner. I had 4500 hahaha. So much for loosing weight and getting in shape huh. I have already gained the reputation of the guy that cleans everyone else's plates. . . just like back home. Lol (especially with the group of 7 girls, I get lots of extra food).

Tonight for dinner, Kelsey, Powell, Melissa and I are going to grab some food somewhere here in town and then you cannot wait to hear what we will do next. We are going to do Ecuadorian Zumba. hahahahaha!!! Every day from 630 to 830 pm and am, a lot of the females in the town, and a couple males all meet in this big gym and do a form of Tyboe like stuff or Zumba. I have not gone yet but a few of the little girls at the Casa want Powell and I to go. Melissa told them we would so now we are stuck. It should be interesting and slightly embarrassing but who cares. I have done worse stuff and I'm alright, right? Haha, no it will be great. 

Last thing to tell you is that Powell and I started working out with Dwight early in the morning. I am now waking up at 5 o'clock every day to do P90X with Dwight in his back yard. Today was our first day and he forgot his computer so we just did our own arms and shoulders workout. It wasn't too bad except that it was so early. Actually though, because I worked out this morning, I think I have been less tired throughout the day so that is pretty cool. We plan on it again tomorrow. So in short, with 5 o'clock workouts, work all day, and dancing at night, I think I'm just fine to eat at least 10000 calories a day which I think is about where I am right now. I like food here. . . and everywhere. It is so cheap here too which is part of the problem. I am very blessed. 

Well, we are about to head out for dinner. Ecuadorian's normally don't eat until around 8ish every night but when I wake up at 5 in the morning, that calls for an early dinner. I'll let you know how the dancing goes and how many little girls laugh at us tomorrow. Thanks again for reading. 

Day 7 - New Food

As a general rule, I will eat almost anything as long as it is not super unhealthy. With that being said, today's big story is that I got to try two new foods. More on that to come but first, the beginning of my day:

After my normal morning routine, I headed up and began construction work again. The youngest worker, Eddison and I had a small project that put us sitting close for about an hour working together. I am still very bad at Spanish and he knows no English so I was really trying to find ways to communicate with him. Eventually, I was able to piece together enough words to ask if he wanted to listen to music. He said yes so I pulled out my phone and we jammed to some Need to Breath while we worked. The group that is here from Azusa showed up later and helped work too. It was nice having other English speaking people there. 

It was also nice because since I speak English and have been here longer, they asked me questions and came to me if they needed something. It made me feel important even thought I actually know nothing and have only been here for three days longer than them. They are a fun bunch of people and have accepted me into their group by inviting me out to dinner and lunch and stuff. Lunch was Alexander's again plus a little ice cream afterwards. I tried to order ice cream by myself and it was not going over so well. The lady had no idea what I was asking and all I knew was helado and what I wanted based off me pointing. Luckily, there was a guy that spoke English near by so he helped us out. Thanks random old guy, I needed it.

For PE, we started track and field events. I had the young ones today so I taught them shot put, discuss, long jump, and high jump. They loved all of them but especially long and high jump. I made them into competitions and challenged them that if anybody could jump higher or farther than me, then we could just play games. All the kids are like 10 so obviously they couldn't beat me. It's cool being the teacher of so many small kids because they think everything I do is cool. The two tallest boys held a jump rope as high as they could in the air to see if I could jump over it. I did fairly easily (because the boys are only 3 feet tall) and everyone thought that was impressive. 

I am having a lot of fun teaching them and am now beginning to learn all of their names. After school and a bit of cleaning my apartment, I met up with the team, Dwight, Tandy, and Jonathan for dinner at Abuelos. I got a tilapia dinner plate complete with a huge fish, beans, rice, and the fried banana thing that I can't remember the name of right now. It was soooo good! Afterwards we went to a famous local ice cream place and got ice cream. I wanted to try a new flavor so I got avocodo. I didn't realize until later that they had actually given me pistachio. I was a little sad but it is okay because now I just have to go back. haha. 

After dessert, we came home and another small adventure happened. Throughout the day, my trash had begun to really stink. I threw an egg away a couple of days ago and along with several egg shells every morning, let's just say it smelled disgusting. Also, when I picked the bag up to throw it out, it was somehow leaking so now I have super smelly egg drops all over my house. It is really gross. I tried to clean as best I could but it still stinks. Oh well, I guess I can just try to clean some more tomorrow. 

Tonight, Kelsey's brother is coming in and will be staying with me. I made his bed tonight and worked out unlocking the door for him. Good thing the first thing he is going to get when he arrives is a nice big old punch in the face by an awful rotten egg smell. haha. My bad dude. Well, I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow so I best get to sleeping. Thanks for reading and please enjoy the pics below. 

Sorry the picture quality is so bad. I don't know why they all came off my phone screwed up like that.

This is my plate. It is already partly eaten but you can get the
picture. The fish is huge and I ate the whole thing. . . except the bones. 

This is me holding the eye ball of the fish I am about to eat.
Everyone was watching and some gagging as I approached
my mouth. haha.

And this is me actually eating the eyeball. I ate it slowly and
was sure to get all the juice coming off of it so that people
watching could get the full effect. Besides the thought of
it, it really didn't taste bad at all. 

This was the pistachio ice cream that was
supposed to be avocado. It was still good
and homemade.

This is the Elmo cake I told you about from
the other night. I just got it uploaded so I
wanted to give you a looksee. Cool right?
It didn't taste too bad either. 

Day 6 - Snake Bite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just kidding! I did not get bit by a snake today but I did see one in a jar at La Casa. Today was my first Monday working. I woke up with my same morning routine. I cooked three boiled eggs and ate them with these meat stuffed bread things Dwight and Tandy got me from a local bakery. After breakfast, I hit the work station and helped make concrete and such. The Bodega we are building is coming along pretty nicely and should be finished here in the next week or so. We are building it to house all of the electrical equipment for the new school house we are also building. 

After a while of that, a mission team from Asuza College in California came in and they took over the sifting. It is a group of 7 girls and 1 guy but the guy and 3 of the girls were sick so it was only 4 for today. They were all good workers and fun to talk to considering they were 4 new people who could speak my language. After we got them started working, I weed whacked for about an hour and a half before I went to lunch. We ate at Alexander's again except this time I got two whole helpings of everything. The owner looked at me like I was crazy ordering my second plate but I had to, I was hungry. 

After lunch, I went back to Casa, organized some of the PE equipment and got ready to teach. For PE today, I had the 7 girls again and they were pretty good today. We did jump rope stuff and several of them were pretty good. We even got to where they could do double dutch for a little while. 

The best part of the day was after PE when all the younger kids got out of school. They immediately came downstairs to where I was and kept showing me all the gymnastics they could do in preparation for PE tomorrow. Some of them are very impressive and others are super strong too. I made the mistake of holding one girls feet in the air while she did handstand push ups. That made all the other kids want to do it so I went down the line and went through probably 10 or so kids one after the other doing the same thing. Some of the kids, especially Wilson, my new friend, kept trying to break dance on the ground while challenging me to do the same. He was not very good at the break dancing but was trying very hard. His sister, Maria, is in my M-F PE class and she is the most athletic and smallest of all the girls. She can do one handed push ups with me and is very close to completing a kick up. It is really fun teaching her stuff because she is really receptive and tries everything I throw at her. 

After school, I came home, ate some food, did some laundry, cleaned some dishes, and am now heading to dinner. Idk where I will go but I'll figure it out once I start walking. Tomorrow should be another fun work day as I complete my first week away from home.

Day 5 (and end of day 4) - Deportes

End of Day 4

After my last blog yesterday, I was able to play some Ultimate Frisbee. Woohoo! I went to the field where we were supposed to play at 4. I showed up right at 4 or maybe a couple minutes early and there was nobody there. Once people started showing up about 20 minutes later, I learned that it is Ecuadorian culture to not be on time (funny, because this seems to be the same culture as the women in my life) LOL. Just kidding . . . 

Anyways, right around 4, the skies rapidly changed from clear and sunny to a huge downpour of rain. It rain steadily and heavily for a good 20 minutes and the field was soaked. We decided to still play which was awesome and I had a lot of fun. It was almost all missionary families from the ages of probably 8 to 40. It was a very diverse group and a very eventful game of slip and slide frisbee. Kelsey played with us too and she was really good but I do have to say that I probably broke a couple social norms tackling her several times while jumping for the frisbee. Haha. I apologized. 

Later that night, I walked all the way across town to a Chinese restaurant believe it or not. I got shrimp and vegetables and could not finish it because there was so much. It was muy bien. Afterwards, I walked back towards home and stopped for some ice cream which was different than American ice cream but still pretty good. The girls saw me eating and came to get me to go to Puyo with them so we hopped on the bus and headed there. It was about a 20 minute ride.

Puyo is a bigger town than Shell and they were celebrating their 100th year of existence I guess. They had concerts in the streets and beer everywhere. There were vendors selling food and candy all over the place. The streets were filled with people and dancing and food. It was really fun just walking around. We ended up going to an Italian restaurant where I got a smoothie and a salad which were both pretty good. Salads here don't have anything on American salads though (No salad is near as good as the salads Hannah makes back home btw). The Italian food was awesome too. Melissa got Gnochi (Sp?) which was just introduced to me by Hannah the week before at Geusepis (sp?) in Nicholasville. Misspellings evrywere. Teehee. After Puyo, we came back and made a makeshift fire in the girls driveway. It wasn't quite like the fires we have back home but it was nice to just sit around it an talk. 

Day 5

Today was my first Sunday in town. Melissa picked me up in a cab, because it was raining, around 1030. We headed to Casa to pick up four little girls to take them to church with us. They were so cute and their names were Anna, Ruby, . . . Dangit, I met like 50 people today and cannot remember all their names but in short, they were all really cute and fun to be with. They all took a little while to warm up to me but after church we were friends. We went back to Melissa and Kelsey's house for lunch. When we got there, Ruby grabbed my hand and said "Come on". Thats when I knew we were friends. She held my hand for a while and hugged on my arm. I was glad she had finally warmed up to me but then I realized she was afraid of Melissa's dog so that might have been the reason for the hand holding. haha. 

For lunch we had ham sandwiches, a bag of chips, and Oreo cookies. The girls loved it all and ate a ton. For entertainment while we ate, we watched a bootlegged Spanish copy of the Princess and the Frog. I watched it with the girls while we ate but couldn't really understand anything. It was a fun afternoon. 

After lunch, I came back to my house, ate a little more food, then did some laundry and took a nap. At 4 I woke up and headed to the basketball courts. I got there about 410 because I knew the locals played at that time but there was nobody there so I walked back to the house and got a basketball and by the time I got back to the courts, there were two guys there. They saw me walking while they were walking and they signaled for me to follow them. They could tell I was coming to play I guess because I had a basketball in my hand. Their names were people (nickname) and Wilson I think. About 20 minutes later, there were about 20 other local Ecuadorians there. I met all of them and after about an hour and a half of playing, we were all pretty good friends. They invited me to come back next Sunday and play again with them.

Basketball down here is quite a bit different, kinda like everything else. :) The call fouls on pretty much everything. They actually got mad at me because I wasn't calling any when I got fouled. At one point, everyone stopped and said that someone fouled me but I argued that it wasn't. I tried to explain that I don't call fouls and especially not like the one that just occurred. I tried to tell them that it was called a sissy foul but that did not translate. They all got a little frustrated with me I think and finally said in Ecuador, that is a foul. Now I know. We played on from there and had a great rest of the time. It was really fun too because most Ecuadorians aren't that tall so I was like the 4th tallest person there. 

After basketball, I stopped by the store, grabbed some milk, granola, and oatmeal. I mixed all of that with some dried fruit and nuts I brought from home and that was my dinner. I ate by myself but it was really good. 

Overall I am having an awesome time down here and am truly blessed to be able to experience all of this. The one thing that has been slightly difficult to get used to is being alone most of the time. I live in the basement by myself and eat a lot of my meals alone. Everyone here as been super helpful and very welcoming but I can't go over to someone's house every day for every meal. It's just hard sometimes being the extrovert that I am to have a couple hours and a meal to do by myself. It is all good though. I am praying that God will develop me and teach me in those times and help me with something beneficial to do then. As of now, I have read my Bible, prayed a little, done laundry, and cleaned up. It should get better too because I think mission trip teams start coming this week and will be here every week the rest of my time here.

Well that is a long post but thanks for reading. Tomorrow I start my first full week working and teaching PE. I love being down here and although I don't feel that I am called to be a missionary oversees, I do enjoy this place and really like living here among this culture. Thanks for all the prayers and support! Time to take a shower. Peeyew. Goodnight.

Day 4 - Crazy Zoo (w/pictures)

Today I woke up and did the normal morning routine except with boiled eggs instead of fried eggs. After that, I went over to house where Nate Saint came from the movie End of the Spear. I got to look around and read up on some of the history which was pretty cool. Anyways, from there, myself and a bunch of others loaded up in the cars and drove through the military base to a Zoo they have in town. This zoo was awesome and unlike any other zoo in America. There were military guards there in case something went wrong but other than that, it was pretty open. There were some small birds, jaguars, an iguana, and a cheetah or something like that in cages but there were also animals lose too. There were some ant eater looking things walking around, monkeys were going everywhere, there were some exotic birds and then all the little kids that were with us.

This was one of the monkeys just hanging around. It kept
doing flips and stuff to impress us I think. Later on, one
of his friends climbed up on my leg and chilled on my
hip for while. He was trying to snatch food from the kids
across from me. Lol.

This is Jonathan posing for me at the Zoo.
He is Dwight and Tandy's kid I told you
about earlier. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the
day. This is Jonathan seriously studying
one of the monkeys hanging out in his house
thing. I tried to get the monkey in it too but
he is hiding behind the pole. :)

It was really fun, and afterwards, we went back to the Nate Saint house and ate taco soup for lunch. It was pretty good. For dessert, we had Elmo cake and ice cream in celebration of John Paul and Johnny's birthdays. They were both very cute but John Paul doesn't like pictures so I didn't get any of him. haha.

Day 3 - Travel Is Over

Two full days of traveling by plane, taxi, bus, and foot. To say the least, I was tired of it. Here in Shell you can walk everywhere which I am actually not tired of at all. I like the idea of walking places. After I woke up around 620, made some fried eggs, toast, juice, ham, and a pear, I walked to Casa de Fe where my first work day began. I met the guys first, who all spoke very little English. One was a student of English though so we got to help each other out today. That was pretty cool. There were six in all and they are Ecuadorian construction workers basically. They are hired by Casa de Fe and work long hot days building the new school building and a storage shed. I worked on the storage shed with them. 

My first job came as they handed me a big electric hand saw. You know, the kind that if you slip or don't use correctly can cut your arm off. I pretended like I knew what I was doing and got to work cutting up big concrete blocks to make the walls of the shed. I slipped a couple times but no lost appendages so praise the Lord for that. When I was introduced to the guys, one of them was introduced as the youngest. I could tell he was the youngest because he kinda got bossed around by the others. He was very happy when I got there though because now he had someone to delegate to. Now that I was the bottom of the food chain as far as working goes, it was funny watching the others tell him to do something and then see him look and motion to me to do it for him. I was happy to help but honestly felt like I was in their way. It was definitely fun trying to communicate with them and laughing every time they laughed even though I had no idea what they were saying. 

After about 4 hours of work, I got to take a lunch break. I went to Alexanders with a couple of the teachers at Casa, Kelsey, Meagan, and Melissa. They are all pretty cool and fun to hang out with. Alexanders was really good. I got soup, rice, a banana, and a mixture of meat and vegetables plus a dessert for $2.50. After that, we went back to Casa and I began trying to figure out what I would do for PE. Today for PE, I only had 7 girls who were between the ages of 10 and 15. My job for the evening was to entertain 7 young girls for 45 minutes. Haha.

For starters, I made them all stand in a line from shortest to tallest (don't make fun, I was told they need structure). Then we walked with everyone on the same step to the basketball court where I tried to teach them gymnastics. We did cart wheels, back bends, round offs, kick ups, toe touches and tried to hang sideways on a pole. At the end we played back bend freeze tag. The girls kept laughing at me for different reasons but it was still fun trying to act like I was a gymnast. We walked back in line again but this time we sang songs to stay on step. I sang an air force jodie I made up on spot. It was awful and I couldn't think of anything that rhymed with gymnastics. The girls liked it though so mission accomplished I guess. Lol. I did give them suckers though afterwards so maybe that is why they liked it.

After school was over I went back to where I am staying and took a little nap. I only really worked 4 hours but was pooped. No sunburn today so that was good. For dinner, I met Melissa and Kelsey along with some of the kids and we went to Patti Sue's house for pizza and salad. We also watched "We Bought a Zoo" in Spanish while we ate. I got to play with John Paul a little bit too which was probably the most fun of my day (he is Patti Sue's 3 year old Ecuadorian boy).

Following pizza, I went to this big covered court where there was some intense volleyball going on. Kelsey took and Melissa took me because I told them I wanted to play but I was not ready for this. First of all, the net was 10 feet high. More than that, the ball was as hard and big as a soccer ball, only Ecuadorians were playing so nobody spoke English, people were gambling on the games, and they were really good. The game was played completely different than back home. I watched for the first hour and then one friend of the girls asked me if I wanted to play. I said yes and walked out to play but nobody wanted me on their team since their was money on the game and they hadn't seen me play yet. It was kinda awkward hearing them argue back and forth on whether or not I could play but then again, I couldn't understand them so it wasn't that bad. haha. I will try to work myself in later but for now  I am glad I didn't play because it would have just been embarrassing. 

Tomorrow should prove to be a little better though. People are playing basketball at 4 and the missionaries here are playing ultimate frisbee too. I am a little better at those sports, at least I think I am. We are also going to the Zoo tomorrow for John Paul's birthday which should be a blast. Patti Sue and Melissa made Elmo Cupcakes and Cake that look awesome. I'm actually looking forward to some Elmo (frosting) Eyeball in the morning. Lol. Thanks for reading!

Day 2 – The Toilet Flushed Backwards!

I have actually never noticed which way toilets flush in America and have quite frankly never really cared. Today however, I did care, because I wanted to see how the good old pots flushed down here. They do indeed flush the opposite direction (counterclockwise I think). More on bathrooms and things of that nature, public urination is actually acceptable. When riding in another awesome no seat belt wearing crazy cab ride, I saw a man peeing on the side of the road. I asked my friend and he said this is totally acceptable. I’m starting to like this place more and more. Don’t get me wrong, it was a public but very respectful teetee. The gentleman was faced away from traffic and aimed into the grass (thank you sir). Following the cab ride though, my liking of the countries facilities policies was lessened when I had to pay a lady 10 cents to use the restroom. Good thing I only had to go number 1 because number 2 would have cost me double.

Enough with this potty talk and on to the real adventures of Cato. Today I sat on a public bus for over 5 hours riding from Quito to Shell. It wasn’t that bad at all really. I slept on and off and was here before I knew it. Upon arrival to Shell, we walked up to Tandy and Dwight’s house. They have a great home and currently I am occupying their basement where I will live for at least the next month. It is very spacious and other than not having a TV (which I like) all else is very similar to a house in the US. There are of course several small things I have to do differently but all in all I am very blessed and feel comfortably at home. The only problem is that I don’t know any young people yet so my extroverted self is going to have to spend a few nights by myself. It will be good though. I plan on going to bed early and waking up early to have a devotion and maybe even get a workout here or there. IDK yet but I will keep you posted.

For food today, we walked to a little grocery store where I bought two dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, juice, fresh fruit, ham, and something else I cannot remember at the moment. Then, we went out to eat at this little restaurant. For $3.50 I got two boneless skinless chicken breasts on top of a very hearty helping of rice, a generous portion of black beans, homemade French fries and fried yuku or yoku or something like that (basically an Ecuadorian potato), along with a small salad and water bottle. I was very content.

My favorite thing about this town so far is that you can walk everywhere. Everything is within walking distance kinda like Wilmore but there is so much more stuff here. I can’t wait until tomorrow when I can explore more. My favorite part of the trip however has been the kids or kid in this case. The Martins are the couple I am staying with and they have a three year old boy named Jonathan. He is very cute and fun to hang out with. Within 10 minutes of my arrival, I was sitting on the floor reading him David and Goliath and within 30 minutes, I was giving him a ride on my shoulders as we walked through the city to get dinner. I love kids and can’t wait to meet a lot more tomorrow.

I am so blessed to be here and I can see God’s hand in the beauty of the mountains, kids, animals, architecture and everything else here. It is actually really cool being a minority here and only seeing like one out of 1000 white people. It gives me a new perspective on people in general and how meaningless color is. I already don’t assign value or meaning to color but it is just cool to get another perspective. God loves everybody and I don’t think he sees color. I cannot wait to learn all the lessons God has for me here. Lastly, Tandy and Dwight are awesome and I really appreciate them letting me into their home or basement. They are great hosts.