Daniel

I am not sure if I have mentioned Daniel before, but I figured he should have his own entry. The construction is run by Edwin-he is the head engineer for SIFAT and he designs all of daycares SIFAT has. He has two employees-Julio & Daniel, Julio is the foreman, and Daniel basically the one that shows me what to do 90% of the time. The interesting thing about Daniel is that he is deaf. And he doesn’t know sign language at all. Ironically enough he is probably the easiest for everyone to understand. He and Edwin have created their own language together and we mimic that. Daniel is probably the best boss I have ever had. Everything that we do he shows us (normally more than twice), and he guilds us every step of the way. He never gets mad when we screw up (please imagine my eternal screw-ups at a construction site). He laughs, shakes his head, and helps me fix the problem. He not only does this for me, but for every other team and individual that is working with him. He never gets frustrated with the fact that he can’t communicate, and I have worked with him for 2 weeks and never seen him angry. He is inspiring to work for and such and interesting way for God to choose to reflect Christ to me.

A game & A wedding

¡Viva España! Spain won the world cup. Yes, being here has made me obsessed with it too. You just can't help it because literally every front page headline for the past two weeks has had to do with the world cup. Plus it is one of the few conversations I can have pretty easily in spanish.

Sunday was not just the World Cup. The group that came down Saturday night from Alex City brought a bride and groom with them. They decided when they got engaged that they wanted to actually get married at Mama Yoli's church (this was SIFAT's second completely finished daycare center and church in Quito). Most of the teams that come year round have spent a couple of summers building this and it is one of my favorite things when a returning group comes to see it. This time they not only can they brought a party. The bride and groom are probably some of the most chill people I have ever met. It was raining and everything when we arrived at the church and the bride just put on her tennis shoes and hiked up her dress. This was the first wedding this church has had & the excitement on the faces of the members of the community was so cute. They brought in fresh roses and hung ribbons everywhere. They even had a cake. This was a party for sure. It was really inspiring for me and I don't know if the bride & groom realized it or not, but it seemed as if this event sealed the church as finally being complete. It gave the community something to be proud of and celebrate. I even teared up a little. Not only did this couple get married on the first day they showed up at the construction site for the honeymoon. Now I will be honest, I don't know if I would ever be this chill on my wedding day, but it was so refreshing to see how happy they were with just being with each other.

New Beginnings, Sad Endings

Just said goodbye to my second team! I am not down with this whole getting to know a group really well and then having to say goodbye thing. The group from Texas was awesome and really touched my heart. In construction we finished 6 columns of concrete and a flight of stairs just with a group of 6 of them (4 girls and 2 guys). The cool thing about this group was because it was smaller it gave the community a chance to get involved and be a part of this project. A couple of guys showed up every day to help-I am talking mixing concrete help, not passing out water bottles help. They are just volunteers and members of the church we are building the daycare for, it is really inspiring to me how much they are willing and sweat for this church.

Oh and did I mention that they served guinea pig at lunch for the last day. no joke. I was going to be brave and try it, but it definitely came out with a face and I had to say no gracias. A guinea pig costs 30 bucks here, crazy right?

Today was my free day so i did some sightseeing. This really is a beautiful city. It is basically a bowl surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. I went to some churches, la basillica & la compañia. La basillica is basically straight out of a harry potter movie-i am in love. And I saw my first ecuadorian traffic accident (no worries I was not in it). A taxi opened its door and a motorbike hit the door-straight out of a Geico commercial.

Random fact: Have you ever wondered where all those sacagawea coins went too?

They are in Ecuador. Seriously every time I buy anything I get sacagawea coins back.

Second Verse, Same as the First:

First day of construction! I feel so hardcore (just kidding, as i was failing to move a wheelbarrow full of rocks, I could tell the workers were thinking, dumb girl, haha). I feel it already in my arms and back. The construction SIFAT is doing is on a Church/daycare in the middle of town(ish) It is a one room church with a kitchen and they want to turn it into a daycare also for kids ages whatever to stay while they are at work or after school. The first team put up like 17? columns last week on the second floor and this week we are going to finish them up. Just in case you were curious they mix the cement by hand (or shovel) It basically involves moving around wheelbarrows of rocks, dirt, dry cement and water until it is all one consistency. It makes you appreciate a cement truck.

The second team is great! much different than they first (two boys and 10 girls). They work really hard and it's looking to be a fun week. Later gator!

Bittersweet:

One week down! And 3 to go. This week has gone by so fast, and I can believe it’s already over. I just said goodbye to the first team and am waiting on the second team to arrive. They were the perfect first team, and I am pretty sad to see them go. I am not going to be able to handle this if I get attached to every team, it’s kind of ridiculous (seriously, i can't cry every week, a kid could get dehydrated you know?) Today we went on a zipline in the coolest area.

Fun fact of the day: What is the difference between a cloud forest and a rainforest?

A cloud forest is when there is a ton of vegetation, but the trees absorb all of their moisture from the clouds

Thought you would like that, but yeah we went ziplining in a cloud forest today. The people who run the zipline are all family and they live on a self-sustaining farm. It is pretty much my dream life style (except for the fact that I don't know how to farm, cook, or build anything). Seriously they live on $100 a month which mostly goes toward electricity and everything else they raise or cook there. Our lunch was pizza, and some heavenly chocolate goop that was all made and grown there. So cool. They are all about conservation and researching friendlier ways to farm. If interested you can get more info at:

www.tucanopy.com (seriously, very cool people)

Random Fun Facts about Ecuador:

One of their main exports is roses. They exported over 131,010,000 dollars worth of roses in 1997. Basically if you have roses in your house right now, they probably came from Ecuador.

Attention:

I know this is going to be a shock for everyone who is aware of my phobia of kids, but I am loving VBS. The team is split into two groups, and everyday some people go to VBS and some go to construction. Personally I like the construction part of missions because I love seeing the end result of what you have done, and let's be honest I am an accounting major and it is probably the only time ever that I will be able to do manual labor. So just imagine my face when told I would be working with VBS this week. BUT as usual God knows what's up and I am loving it. Basically I (attempt to) play soccer and do arts and crafts, AND my spanish is improving so much because of it-in a way it would not if I was doing construction.

Today was awesome btw-after work we went to the highest point in Quito (14,000) we were above the clouds-so cool-except for the no oxygen part because I was breathing like a 500 lb woman.