Defying Gravity

3/18-3/21: BVS Mid-Year Retreat

On Monday morning Alice kindly drove me to the airport where I caught my flight to Orlando for the BVS mid-year retreat. I wasn’t looking forward to being on a plane again, but I was really looking forward to seeing my fellow volunteers. If I was still in Ecuador I wouldn’t have been able to attend. The retreat was held at the Brethren Camp Ithiel located a half hour from Orlando. It consisted of reflective sessions on our service so far and what comes after, devotional times, meals provided by camp, planned recreational activities, and plenty of free time. It was fun to meet the folks from the fall orientation unit (I’m in the summer unit), mostly Germans and a few other folks who grew up Brethren. Some highlights from retreat included: playing many rounds of Code Names, canoeing on the lake and seeing the back of the alligator who lives there, throwing frisbee, waking up early to walk a mile to a coffee shop with friends before breakfast, a caravan of cars containing 20 volunteers showing up at Dairy Queen just before close to get free ice cream cones on the first day of spring, and many moments of intentional connection with others. There was also a beach day at Cocoa Beach and some people stayed a few extra hours to see a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral nearby (I opted to go back to camp and shower). It’s not often that I feel so at ease in large groups, and I continue to be grateful to share this journey with such a wonderful group of humans.

3/22

My flight was slightly delayed due to a computer malfunction on the plane, but they got that resolved pretty quickly. Three podcasts later and I was back in Austin where I took the bus home. At the bus stop I met a man named Jose who told me about his family in Mexico that he hasn’t seen in many years; my favorite part about speaking Spanish is being able to have these small moments where I hear snippets of people’s stories in their heart language.

3/23

After Zumba I checked out the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, which displays the sculptures of a famous Texas artist by that last name. I appreciated his sculptures drawing attention to the plight of refugees and personifying biblical characters. Then I purchased a physical bus pass that is much less stressful to use than always struggling to get the QR code on my phone to scan. Back at the house, I got some plants Alice had picked up for me in the ground! They include cherry tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, basil, parsley, and pineapple mint.

3/24

After church, I went to a small Mexican art museum only to discover that they currently don’t have any exhibitions. So, I walked along the river instead where I saw a baby turtle. Stopping to watch the turtle attracted a small crowd and led one woman to potentially get poison ivy, which I feel slightly guilty about. In the evening, I tried my hand at making chocolate peanut butter eggs for Easter and despite my mom’s warning to not add too much milk, I proceeded to do just that. So they ended up looking a bit monstrous, but they were still a hit with my housemate Leo who said “You are my new bff” when I shared some.

3/25

Returning to work went fine; I didn’t forget everything as I had feared. Some of the kids who attend the daycare held at the church shook my hand as they filed in from recess which cracked me up. I got permission from Terri to assist with the upcoming FaithX trip to Ecuador June 1-10, so I was excited to contact all my friends from Ecuador to tell them I’ll be seeing them again soon!

CONTENT WARNING: graphic picture of the first armadillo I've ever seen.

3/26

Today began a streak that has not yet concluded of me finding an uncanny number of pennies on the sidewalk (I’m up to 5 or 6 and today, 4/8, I found a dime and a quarter on different occasions!). I’m not sure if the universe is trying to tell me that I’m lucky, that I’m in need of a lot of luck, or if it just knows I’m strapped for cash.

3/27

Today I walked to Zumba through a rainstorm and my umbrella blew inside out twice.

3/28-4/1: Sascha Comes to Town

While at retreat, arrangements were made for my friend Sascha to come visit me in Austin over Easter weekend. He is a fellow BVSer from Germany who has visited volunteers across the country but hadn’t yet been to Texas! Sascha’s service placement is at Highland Park Elementary School in Roanoke, VA. He met me at the end of my workday on Thursday and we went to Austin Mennonite for their Maundy Thursday Service. There was a soup supper, communion and foot washing like at Brethren Lovefeast. I found the service meaningful and Sascha reminded me that we had washed each other’s feet at orientation as well, so that was a cool full circle moment. On Friday we went thrifting in the morning and then took a tour of the capital building. Sascha is into parkour, and I got some pictures of him doing backflips in front of the capital; then he convinced me to try a cartwheel for the camera. I’ll let you be the judge of who had better form in the pictures below. Then we walked along Congress Ave and got some expensive but delicious ice cream at Jeni’s, a local chain, and Sascha tried on some cowboy hats and boots. Then we tried the popular queso from Torchy’s Tacos where I learned that Sascha is a spice wimp. In the evening, we tried to see the famous Austin bats fly out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge but unfortunately, they didn’t make an appearance (this made Sascha feel “batrayed”). Saturday highlights included introducing Sascha to Zumba, kayaking on Lady Bird Lake, and my first Cheesecake Factory experience! After getting our cheesecake while waiting at the bus stop, I saw I had a missed call and voicemail from an Austin number. The voicemail said “Hi, please give us a call back if you’re still out on the water so we don’t send out a search crew.” I thought, huh that’s strange. Since they didn’t say my name and the same person who rented us the kayak pulled us in at the dock, and the message only said to call if we were still on the water, I figured maybe the kayak rental place sends out that message to everybody. But when they called back a few minutes later I learned that I had left my ID behind. (For the record, neither Sascha nor I have any recollection of them saying to me, “We’re going to hold onto your ID, don’t forget to come pick it up later.”) But oh well, we stopped by Sunday morning to get it back. AMC’s Easter service was lovely, although I missed being surrounded by family. There was a spectacular breakfast potluck, some classic Easter hymns (Up from the grave he arose!), and I flowered a cross for the first time! I also had a nice chat with a church member from Belize who talked about her experience of leaving her small sugarcane cultivating village to help one of her sons struggling with addiction in the US. Now she cultivates community where she is planted even though it’s never where she imagined she would end up. Sascha headed back to VA early Monday morning.

4/1

Over the weekend, someone smashed the glass out of the church’s front door with a brick. I was told he was just blowing off steam, not trying to hurt anyone or get in, and the door has since been fixed.

4/3

I made friends with one of the ESL students who attends Todos Juntos’ (the other NGO at the church) programming. Her name is Rosa, she’s about my age, originally from Honduras and has a cute and energetic three-year-old name Alan! She takes the Metro Access bus because she has trouble walking and as the bus always comes late, we have time to chat while they’re waiting.

4/4

I was surprised to see headlines about an earthquake in the Northeast; when I mentioned it to one of the custodial staff at the church, she said, “Yeah, I heard there was an earthquake ‘up in the States,’” and that struck me as very Texas of her. Alice made strawberry shortcake and shared some with me :)

4/5

After work I tried out a Colombian restaurant nearby. They have naranjilla smoothies!! Naranjilla, in Colombia called lulo, is a fruit I tried for the first time in Ecuador and hadn’t been able to find since, so each sip was nostalgic.

4/6

Today was halcyonic. I stopped by a farmer’s market where I got a free sample of Mexican hot chocolate cold brew and enjoyed live music before going to Zumba. Both of my buses came within two minutes of me getting to the stop. Then in the afternoon, my friend Rachel who met at hiking for tacos the other month picked me up and we visited the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Since it is peak wildflower time parking was insane, but it didn’t feel overly crowded in the park which is home to an impressive array of native Texas plants.  There were flowers of every hue, a Great Horned Owl whose tufts and eyes we could see from a distance, and some swings under a cluster of beautiful oak trees.

4/7

My bus to church took a 20-minute detour because there was a 10k race downtown (which Rachel participated in). After the service, I joined a group to go out to lunch.

4/8

Today I returned to the Colombian restaurant to try their coffee and work on this post. When I got home, I sat in the backyard with Alice and one of her daughters to watch the eclipse. Austin was in the path of totality and despite the cloud cover the view was pretty cool! I must admit, though, that the most exciting part about it for me was getting off work for the occasion.