In the Weeds

The past two weeks have had their ups and downs—from bouts of homesickness, to tiring but rewarding farm work, to gaining experience solo traveling, to sharing sweet moments of connection with others.

9/18

Today we got to work weeding around blackberry bushes on the farm. We used hoes and machetes to hack at the grass and pull it up, which for me was a physically challenging and painstaking task (in Spanish the word mata has two meanings: bush and kill. After 6 hours of weeding, I was about ready to matar the matas). After pulling up the grass, we heaped it around the base of the plants to serve as fertilizer and keep in moisture. In the late afternoon, two European bicyclists arrived on the farm in search of a place to camp for the night. They had reserved a campsite only to discover that the site didn’t actually exist, and fortunately stumbled upon FBU before it got dark. As they didn’t speak much Spanish I was enlisted as translator, and I learned their names are Daniel (from Germany) and Nika (from Switzerland) and that they planned to bike from Quito to Chile! I was impressed that they were taking on such mountainous terrain at such a high elevation.

9/19

In the morning Daniel and I exchanged blogs, and I recently read that they decided to cut their journey short (they’re flying back to Europe October 8) due to some health and security challenges, but I was grateful to make their acquaintance. The volunteers dedicated the afternoon to weeding the herb garden (herbs are called medicinal plants here). Some of the plants include thyme, lavender, rosemary, oregano, gooseberry, and something called maggi. We disturbed some mice nesting in the garden and Gilber turned out to be a master mouse catcher! There is also evidently a snake who made its home there, but it did not make an appearance (my dad recommended we dub him Herb). In the afternoon I discovered a Mensa puzzle calendar in English from 2006 in the house and have been doing the puzzles each day. I’m much better at the word-related ones than the math.

9/20

This morning I made baked oatmeal for the Venezuelans to try, and in the process I had a bit of a scare. When I went to light the oven, it didn’t work, and it seemed like one of the dials of the stove was slightly turned on! I didn’t smell gas, but I quickly went and got Susanne who informed me that they always turn off the gas overnight—phew! During the workday, we weeded the vegetables we planted the other week and I continued to develop a healthy fear and respect for what they call pikuyo/kikuyu, a type of grass with some gnarly roots. Today I learned that Patricio, a construction worker on the farm, went to the formerly Brethren school in Quito and coincidentally ended up employed at FBU!

9/21

Today as Susanne, employee Veronica, and I were weeding we had a conversation about the sad reality of femicide in Ecuador (of course, violence against women is an issue throughout the world, including the US). Femicide is when a woman or girl is killed because of her gender, and it seems that it often occurs here when a woman becomes involved with a man mixed up in the drug trade or gang activity who provides for her but is often away for long periods of time. If the man discovers that the woman has been unfaithful (even if he himself is routinely unfaithful) he may resort to violence. On a lighter note, I made sure to listen to the song “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire today and hung up some lavender and rosemary to dry.

9/22

Today I struggled with homesickness :/

9/23

Last night, I signed up for a free guided walking tour through the historic center of Quito. I woke up early to catch the bus to the city, and as I walked out the door, I checked my email and discovered that the tour was cancelled! I decided to go anyway and do a self-guided tour. The taxi I took from the bus station to downtown definitely charged me the foreigner price, but I was just grateful I didn’t get kidnapped. In the future, I’ll be more assertive. My first stop was the Basílica del Voto Nacional, a cathedral with beautiful rainbow stained glass windows. I walked up the gazillion steps of spiral staircases to the top of the basilica’s towers from which you can enjoy a great view of the city and El Panecillo, a hill upon which there is a massive statue of the Virgin Mary. Since my selfie game is not very strong, I was grateful that I ran into a man from Colorado at the top who took a picture for me. At a restaurant on one of the floors leading back down, I stopped and tried a typical drink called canelazo, that is made with cloves, cinnamon, sugar, and an endemic fruit called naranjilla. It normally has alcohol, but without it, it tasted like hot spiced cider, which made me feel at home. From there, I went to the Plaza Grande which has a wide variety of well-preserved historical buildings. I went into the Quito Cathedral where there was an ordination going on. Then I went to a museum with various art exhibits, bought artisanal chocolate from a street vendor, experienced a parade in celebration of the international week of awareness of the deaf community, and ate a Venezuelan empanada for lunch. After lunch I went to a museum about Ecuadorian currency while I waited for the famous gold drenched La Compañía cathedral to open (I later learned its opening was delayed because of the wedding of some friends of my supervisor’s daughter!). I was relieved when I made it back to FBU safely before dark.

9/24

Today the Venezuelans and I took a bus to the nearby town of Cayambe to visit a church where we met up with Ebenezer COB members Maria and Osvaldo and folks we met when we helped with VBS in a community south of Quito the other week. Maria and Osvaldo have been connected with the congregation for close to 10 years. The service included music, 4 meditations, and 2 testimonies (including a moving testimony of a little girl who turned one that day who miraculously survived after being born at 6 months of pregnancy). They served us a delicious lunch with cake to celebrate various birthdays in the congregation. It was good to see Maria and Osvaldo again before they headed back to the US.

9/25

Today I made apple crisp (I tried to make it yesterday, but we ran out of gas!). It was a hit :) It rained for the first time since my arrival! We had our first meeting with a man named Marcelo who knows a lot about agriculture and used to be a local government official. He will be offering the volunteers agroecological training over the next few weeks. He shared with us that his family is Christian because of the influence of the Brethren in the area over the years.

9/26

Today I had a meeting about social media with my supervisor and someone who does marketing and design for business. I may soon have the chance to assist in running FBU’s social media. This evening Susanne taught me how to make arepas (thick corn tortillas that can be stuffed with meat and cheese), one of my favorite foods! She was content that she can be confident that when she leaves, I will not go hungry!

9/27

Today Marcelo brought his tractor and taught us how to use it so that we could prepare some land to plant sunflowers! I couldn’t get the song “Big Green Tractor” out of my head.

9/28

We got started preparing beds for the sunflowers, hoeing rows and weeding. The weeding goes a lot faster when the soil is broken up by a tractor rather than manually. In the afternoon there was some impressive thunder and lightning.

9/29

Today I had the opportunity to translate some documents for a grant proposal, and I learned a lot of financial vocabulary in Spanish. After I got off work, I took a bus (I still haven’t quite learned how to tell which buses are the ones I want from afar, but I always flag one down eventually), and ended up sitting in between the driver and the assistant who takes passengers’ money. It was fun to chat with them, but slightly concerning to have a front seat view of how often the driver was looking at his phone!

9/30

Today, I caught a bus to the Mitad del Mundo—the middle of the world! When I got off the bus, I was close to my destination but was super grateful when a girl my age who works at the Mitad del Mundo complex walked with me the rest of the way! I took pictures along the equator and climbed to the top of the monument marking the middle of the world, and got my passport stamped. Surrounding the monument there is a touristy complex with museums and exhibits about indigenous cosmology and culture, traditional housing in various regions of Ecuador, chocolate processing and history, art, the French expedition to demarcate the equator, and astrology. I tried a taxo flavored popsicle—this is a native Ecuadorian fruit. For lunch, I ordered fritada, which has pork, potatoes, beans, fried plantain, mote (mushy white corn), and toasted corn—so much delicious food for only $5! After lunch, I made a stop at the Intiñan (path of the sun in Quechua) Museum, which is located at the actual location of the middle of the world measured more accurately with advanced technology in 2000. I asked to be added to a Spanish tour, and the tour guide asked me if I was born in Ecuador—what a compliment! The tour included visits of replicas of traditional indigenous housing and tools. We learned about the tradition of shrinking heads, a practice that was used to intimidate enemies and to take on the knowledge and spirit of those warriors. Today, this is illegal with humans but is still practiced on animals in certain regions of the Amazon. The rest of the tour included fun equator related experiments. We saw how water spirals down a drain in different directions on the northern and southern sides (and doesn’t spiral at all on the equator), balanced an egg on a nail (I got a certificate for being able to do it), and tried to walk in a straight line on the equator with our eyes closed (you can feel the competing forces!).

10/1

This morning Alfredo and Maria Fernanda accompanied me to the Quito Mennonite Church. I’ll have to visit again to discern whether this could be my church home here. After church, we picked up Alfredo’s daughter Valentina and her partner and together we went to a chocolate shop/café as an early birthday celebration. Alfredo kindly treated me to some delicious ice cream and an exquisite chocolate dessert. I also got to try my first guagua de pan (baby shaped bread with chocolate filling), which is traditionally eaten around All Saints Day but is sold year-round. Everything was so good and left me in a blissful chocolate coma! In the afternoon, I called my parents and my dad´s side of the family, who sang me happy birthday. In the evening, we had Dominos and Fanta orange for dinner. What a great way to start off the new month!