Allowing ourselves to be nourished

I´ve learned something about God´s love this past week. Mom and Dad were here visiting, and in their week here we received countless invitations from neighbors to share meals with them. So we accepted, and ate homemade ecuadorian meals until our sensitive american bellies were full, full, full. Mom and Dad offered to buy the food they´d cook, or to pay for the desserts they served us that they normally sell from their homes, and no one would ever accept any kind of payment or reimbursement. Mom´s [grateful] reaction to this hospitality was ¨how do you ever get back at these people? how do you ever get even with them if you can´t give them anything in return?¨

Well, the point isn´t to ´get back´, ´get even´, or try to match or even outdo their hospitality. It´s a lesson in humbly receiving. Our neighbors here have a beautiful gift of giving, wholly and selflessly. And sometimes we just aren´t so good at being on the receiving end of that. I´m finding that this year is a lesson in receiving the generosity and love that is poured out for us, in allowing ourselves to be humbled in a way that we are not used to and not always comfortable with. Sort of like God´s love, right? I mean, who among us thinks that we´ll eventually be able to ´get even´ with the love shown to us through the creation, redemption, and sanctification of humanity? The Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection? We can´t match that. But we can open our hearts to it, humbly receive it, let it take root within us, and reflect it to others in the way we live our lives. Jesus washed feet, but also had his own face wiped. And that Face of Christ is in the giving and receiving of love, which often takes place over a delicious ecuadorian meal. So maybe God´s love is like when you drop by a neighbor´s house and somehow end up with a heaping plate of rice, lentils and plantains in front of you when you didn´t even think you were hungry....but it´s so yummy that you eat it all anyway.

[thought: i wonder who brought the bread and wine to the Last Supper?]

**************************

Other recent happenings:

My community and I successfully raised, killed, and ate 3 chickens. We bought 3 little chicks in early December and loyally fed and cleaned them for 2 months until they got big and tasty, just in time for Mom and Dad´s visit. We ran into a problem a few days before the planned slaughterning...one of the chickens apparently fell ill. It wouldn´t eat, drink, open its eyes, or walk around. Two guards said it may be a little sick, or maybe it just got in a fight with the others, but either way should be killed immediately just to be sure (and, if it´s insides looked ok, it´d be fine to eat). One other guard and his wife swore it was the avian flu and would make us all horribly sick if we ate it. Jesús, my go-to woman for chicken questions, said it likely fell out of the hodgepodge coop we built, or got in a fight--it wasn´t sick, just sad, we didn´t need to kill it, it´s fine to eat! Alas, we killed it with Wellington (guard)and Soraya (his wife) and froze the meet until Jesús could inspect it for us. Typical Ecuador: everyone has differing, occasionally bizarre, opinions and suggestions. (in the end, we did not eat this one. Jesús cooked it and gave it to a very poor neighbor.)

As for the other two chickens, Jesús did the slaughtering and carving and I helped with the cleaning and carving. Dad took pictures, Mom said ´ewwww...´ a lot, but she did pull out 2 feathers (go mom!). One of the reasons of this adventure was to learn how to cook seco de pollo, a typical ecuadorian dish made by boiling down tomatos, peppers, onions, cumin, cilantro, and an ecuadorian fruit into a sauce in which the chicken is cooked. We had enough to feed Jesús´ family, the guards who helped us in this process, and ourselves. Vale la pena. Raise chickens: check!

Note to Andrew of Cabrini College: you asked me to mention in this blog if the chickens ever pecked through that ridiculous cardboard contraption we built for them.....they did´t! Although the screen/floor did eventually fall through, but Wellington resolved that problem by laying down a big piece of wood across the screen. The coop was a soggy busted mess by the time we killed the chickens, but it did hold out. :)

Exciting news fromManos Abiertas! Thanks to donations of childrens vitamins from generous folks in the States, the kids at Manos are now getting a vitamin at the end of the program every day! I did some math and with the amount of vitamins we currently have, Manos kids are set for at least 6 more months (through the rest of my time here), and our after-school programs in other neighborhoods may be able to begin giving vitamins as well. Thank you for helping us care for these kids.

Note: If you are reading this and are interested in sending down vitamins or shool supplies, please contact Helen Rombalski at hrombalski@aol.com. If you´d like to make a financial donation to Rostro de Cristo, visit http://rostrodecristo.org/Give/Give.html .

These are some of the beautiful little faces I see every day at Manos:

Jordy, age 5. Loves paper airplanes.

Playing Memory at recess.

Danny leading the big kids in Pictionary.

Yulisa, Ricardo, Anthony, and Juan Carlos receiving their vitamin.

Plucking the chickens!

Grace like a waterfall

Two weeks ago, 10 wonderful students, a campus minister, and a religious studies professor from Cabrini College had the courage to come live in Durán for a week, and i was blessed enough to be their retreat leader. We spent time with several neighbors in AJS and in Arbolito, and visited some of RdC´s partner foundations. As it turns out, my Spanish is good enough to translate day in and day out for a group of gringos like myself. I learned so much about my neighbors, because the group asked them questions i hadn´t thought to ask yet, and maybe never would have. I watched the group struggle with disconnects between their expectations and what they saw and heard, with the joyful challenge of living simply and in community, and with what this all means for them and their lives. My eyes were opened to seeing Durán, its people, and my year here in a new light. And, (allow me to stereotype for a minute), campus ministers and religious studies professors are generally my favorite people ever, and it was thrilling to be able to think and talk about faith, religion, and life here with brilliant people (who had the humility to want to learn from me, believe it or not...talk about empowering others!). I loved the role of Cabrini´s volunteer retreat leader so much that i´m sort of thinking maybe God is telling me something here? (One thing being that i´m definitly going to grad school someday). To Kristie, Laura G, Laura H, Leah, Chelsie, Andrew, Rizito, Katrina, Shannon, Julie, Christa, and Nick/Ruddy, thank you for opening your hearts and minds to Durán and Rostro de Cristo. Love you all.

I also had a really great birthday while they were here. The kids at Manos Abiertas made me signs and birthday cards covered in painted handprints of their manos abiertas [thank you Kasia for starting this]. I actually cried after the charla in front of all the kids and my retreatants. It was so sweet. And the Fairfield U Eucharistic Ministers´ tradition of writing Christmas cards to alums doing service brought me extra birthday joy. Thanks everyone!

Christmas in Ecuador was really beautiful. As a community, we went caroling on the 21st to our neighbors, complete with homemade Christmas cookies, wearing Christmas socks (thanks Mrs. Amy´s mom!). That Monday night we had a Christmas party with all of us and all Rostro staff and their families. We cooked and ate and danced and played games and testified to the faces of Christ that filled that room. It was a true sign that we really do have family here in Durán.

Since Christmas Eve is the big deal here, not Christmas Day, the 24th was a busy night. For Nochebuena we (the AJS girls) had dinner #1 with Elizabeth, the wife of our guard Omar, who cooked us an amazing meal and filled us with stories about her life as a 23 year old Ecuadorian wife and mother. It was such a blessing to be able to be with her, otherwise she would have been alone Christmas Eve (Omar was working). From there we went to 9pm mass, which shockingly started on time and was packed. After that, we went to dinner #2 around 11:30pm at Wellington and Soraya´s house, another guard-and-wife household, and somehow fit more food in our stomachs than we ever should have. Despite the discomfort that comes with overeating for 5 hours, we had a really wonderful Christmas Eve. On the 25th we went caroling at Damien House and sung to patients living with Hansen´s Disease. We (the whole Rostro gang) had a delicious italian dinner that night at the home of Sr. Annie, a Brooklyn B.V.M, who founded Damien House. There was just more love and hospitality than i ever thought possible this holiday.

Gracias a Dios, we´ve had time off from work since Christmas day. To get out of town, relax, and conocer other parts of Ecuador, Tracy, Melissa, and I packed up our backpacks and headed to Puyo, a small city on the edge of the Amazon. We spent a day in the city meeting honest-to-goodness the nicest and funniest people in this country who are endlessly willing to help a gringa missionara out. On the morning of the 27th we piled into a pickup truck of a jungle tour agency and headed into the Amazonian rainforest. We slept in grass huts, hiked through the forest, got muddy and bitten by bugs, swam in waterfalls, swung from vines, got jungle-facials from ceramic-like mud from riverbeds, snorted juice made out of tree bark that is an effective jungle remedy for nasal congestion, wove headbands out of palm leaves, rode down a river in a canoe, and had a hilariously fun time befriending our tour guide Angel, the only 24 year old Ecuadorian man i´ve met that is not scummy, sleazy, sketchy, or any other word you could use to describe the machismo men in Ecuador. After 3 days in the rainforest, we headed up to Baños, a small, newly touristy city nestled in the spectacular Andean mountains. There, we watched lava spit out of an active volcano, rented mountain bikes and rode 22 kilometers along a highway through the mountains, crawled through tunnels to stand behind an incredibly powerful waterfall, went to mass, had a goodcup of coffee and a delicious pizza-and-pasta dinner, and met up with Angel again to check out the local nightlife. I took maybe around 450 pictures and i´m pretty obsessed with them. I´m posting a few now. Beauty beyond words. Ecuador is a stunningly gorgeous country that God just poured his grace on like a waterfall. I had a really, really great time traveling and being adventurous and whatnot. It was so refreshing to see green again, to be in a beautiful landscape and to not have to be on guard 24/7 around an Ecua male. Though now I´m stuck in an emotion of not being excited to be back in Durán; after seeing what else Ecuador holds, and that Ecuadorians, even the men, are even nicer and more welcoming elsewhere, I´m starting to see that Durán really is the armpit of Ecuador, if you will. I am happy to be back with the neighbors, to converse with them and ring in the new year tonight, but man this town is uuuugly.

Ringing in the New Year with Elizabeth, Walter and Jesús, and the AJS girls.

Don´t drink and drive.

(c) 2008 EJR.

Sure not dreaming of a white Christmas...

Felíz Navidad everyone. Especially to Cabrini College--praying for you all, that you might share the joy of loving hospitality and simplicity with your families. Enjoy the snow!

Christmas plans: Dinner with Omar and Elizabeth (one of our guards and his wife) this evening. 9pm mass. Dinner #2 with Wellington and Soraya (another guard and his wife) after mass, probably till 2 or 3am. Christmas morning brunch with the community. Caroling at Damien House (hospital/home for patients living with Hansens Disease). Christmas dinner at Sr. Annie´s (founder of Damien House), with Pat and Sonya joining us (more phenomenal people, founders of Nuevo Mundo). From there, heading to Puyo with Melissa and Tracy to explore the Amazon rainforest for a few days, then to Baños where we´ll bike around waterfalls and enjoy the Andean scenery. Back on the 31st to join in Ecua New Years traditions such as blowing up añoviejo dolls and dancing all night long.

Wishing all of you a beautiful, joyful Christmas. May we follow Mary´s example and open our hearts to God´s amazing grace so that we too might give birth to an incarnate Christ through our lives.




When will i ever get a chance to actually share with you blog-readers what this year is like?

Rhythm

I´m not sure where I´ve left off in terms of my roles at my worksites. lo and behold, i´m now and English teacher to the módulo 3 girls at Santiago. It´s been quite an adventure trying to gain some sort of authority and command their attention, nevermind planning lessons and trying actually teach things. I gave my first quiz on Wednesday morning (parts of the body, parts of the face, and clothing) and I believe they all failed. One girl was very clearly copying off her neighbor´s quiz so I told her I was taking off one point (out of 20) for cheating and she looked at me with a face that said ¨how dare you even threaten such a thing!¨ and she in turn ripped up her quiz and tossed it in the garbage. Oops, too bad, now you have a zero. It turns out I´m not a softie when it comes to giving grades. Still can´t believe I´m a teacher. I´m learning that teaching calls for such intentionality and love and thought and man, its just a tricky role. I´m also seeing my own educational past in a new light and appreciating in a new way the teachers and professors in my life that are living a vocation that is so powerful. Thanks folks.

*While I´m talking about education, I have to add that ¨Pedagogy of the Oppressed¨ is an absolutely essential read for anyone even remotely involved in the field of education, and also for all of those that give a damn about the shape of the world we live in and the one human family of which we are a part. Lately people have been asking me what they can do to support me, or help the kids I work with. Answer: read this book and think about all the ways in which you are both an oppressor and are oppressed by others. And then strive to bring about justice, that is, right relationships, in your life. You´re not giving things to financially poor kids in some far off place, but rather engaging in the liberation of humanity, which is what Rostro de Cristo is really about anyway.*

Thursday at Santiago was lovely though. The girls greeted me with hugs (funny, because 24 hrs earlier they hated me for giving a quiz that they knew about well in advance) and I was in their Ciencias Naturales class while their teacher Elizabeth taught about water, why it´s vital to living beings, a global water crisis, etc. When the girls heard that there may be wars fought over water they were appalled, in a 12-yr-old sort of way, that anyone would take from someone that which is necessary for life. I found this interesting given that their own water situation is less than ideal. drinkable water is bought in large blue jugs for around $1.25 whenever the truck passes by your house. Water for other use is bought from large tanks that fill the metal barrel outside your house for 70 cents. Running water? Nah.

Manos is a joy as always. Except for this Wednesday (overall a rough day). Right after the program ended, after giving out bread and banana and water to all the kids, a fight broke out right outside the school. The conflict started on the soccer field during recess when one girl blamed another for their team´s loss, and she responded with an insult of some kind. They decided to settle it outside and there was a lot of insulting and kicking of the girl´s bike and almost all the kids at Manos that day were antagonizing and encouraging the fight. Ohh, children. Aide (our ecuadorian manos/rostro employee, 19 yrs old) gave them a good talking to on Thursday about what we strive to teach them at Manos, how their behavior after Manos completely burns that, and that we are there to help them resolve conflicts in nonviolent ways. As a consequence, we cancelled Manos on friday (after much thought about the pros and cons of this) and told them to take the afternoon to think about their behavior. That was neither easy nor fun to do, but we think it was the best choice.

This year is about way more than worksites. I don´t like that that is what i tend to write about. Boo to me. Community life has had its ups and downs. Kasia, the community mate that I live and worked with at both sites, went back home to the States last friday due to a variety of health problems that had escalated above what we as a community could minister to and beyond attempts to get her healthy here. So now I´m the only volunteer at Santiago, which is certainly an opportunity for new growth and flourishing, we are down a volunteer at Manos which is challenging but still very do-able, and our community is transforming. Such is the rhythm of international service.

My first retreat group arrives tonight!! Recall that I came to Ecuador in January with Fairfield U as a winter break service-immersion trip (a very inappropriate title for it, if you ask me). A big chunk of Rostro de Cristo´s mission here is providing educational opportunities to U.S. youth by hosting groups of students from high schools and universities as they engage in the reality of life in Duran for around 10 days. They visit our afterschool programs, worksites, and partner programs in hopes of continuing a process of personal and spiritual transformation that will lead to a greater commitment to service and justice. Anyway, Cabrini College lands at 10:30pm tonight and I will be their volunteer leader for the next 10 days. I´m giddily excited and really hoping that this week flips their world upside down and moves them spiritually.

Because of this upcoming week, I should get back home to squeeze in a nap before the late-night airport run.

Ohh but before I post this, final news: I´m now raising chickens with my community as well! I´ve been spearheading this adventure for about 5 weeks now. The original plan was to raise 3 chickens to slaughter and turn into a delicious meal (with the help of some neighbors) when my parents are here visiting in february, but apparently it takes 3 months for chickens to grow, and due to the community situations that have been going on, the process was delayed and now they may just be a delicious meal in march. (dear mom and dad: sorry i hadn´t mentioned that delay yet. thanks for supporting me in all my stupid ideas, but i dont think you´ll get to kill and eat the chickens with us.) I bought the little chicks today and we build a coop for them mounted against the wall in the most ridiculous fashion, coordinated by Abrahan, our head of security, and Maximo, one of our guards. I think it will be a memorable and smelly experience.

Love.

Proof that I´m in Ecuador and loving it :)

At Manos Abiertas
left: conflict resolution between christopher (l) and oliver (r)

below: chatting our way through a picture book with jordy (my favorite), moises, and briggitte (also favorites)


At Santiago Apóstol
below, left: briggitte, one of my students at Santiago
below, right: with kasia and 5 other módulo 3 students and our teacher Elizabeth (who totally rocks)

Ecua-funny

Funny things happen here a lot. Some of those things are really only funny in the context of life in Ecuador. For example...


For most of my life whenever I say that my last name is Raby, I occasionally hear some kind of joke along the lines of ¨oooh, do you have rabies?!¨ ha, funny. Not. Anyway. One of the teachers at Santiago, Junior, asked me my last name last week, and i said Raby, with a Spanish accent (rolling the R, short ´a´ as in apple). And he said, ¨ah, como conejo!¨, which means ¨oh, like rabbit!¨ To him, Raby sounds just like rabbit. So intead of ¨ooh, do you have rabies?¨ now the joke is ¨ah, como conejo!¨ No, not like a rabbit. He was the second Ecuadorian to have that response. The first was a woman at the medical dispensario, when i dropped off a poop sample to test for parasites. Which leads to the next funny thing...


Most of us volunteers are almost always afflicted with parasites of some kind. Most of them aren´t too serious, and if they aren´t causing side affects, why bother treating them? We´ll inevitably get reinfected, and being on antibiotics every other week ain´t too good either. We´re used to mild diarrhea by now. We can drop off fecal samples at the dispensario for $1 and later that afternoon can pick up the results, which are usually some combination of worms, Ghiardia, amoebas, fungus, and e. coli. Yes, e. coli. It really isn´t a big deal, definitely not what American parents make it out to be. It´s one of those things that we´ll live with for a while and wipe out with some hefty antibiotics later on when we have more serious illnesses to worry about. Here´s the funny part. Every morning, Karen and I work on the daily crossword puzzle, left by former volunteers. One of the clues recently was ¨Serious bacteria.¨ Answer? E. coli. Haha. We´ve had that! *


Last funny thing. Our kitchen sink is broken. Yesterday morning Abrahan, our head security guard slash handy dandy superhero, and our guard Wellington, spent an hour or so taking apart the pipes under the sink and unclogging the septic tank outside. (Note: to take apart the pipes, they used the gas stove to light a newspaper on fire, which they used to melt the tar / glue off the pipes to take them apart....all while still watching the oh-so-important soccer game on tv....and then put the burning newspaper in the sink, which we couldn´t turn on to douse the flames because duh, there are no more pipes connected to it and the water will just go all over the floor...) Our sink is still out of commission while the new layers of tar dry, so we´re stuck doing dishes in the shower now. Spent about half an hour last night in a bathing suit in the shower washing pasta sauce off lots of plates. Alas, it is still a huge blessing to have running water here at all.


¡Viva Ecuador!


* Don´t worry, we´re actually taking significant measures to take good care of our health. We boil bottled water, clean our food well, soak it in bacteria-killing stuff, etc. Parasites are pretty much just part of the daily grind.

My Heart Will Go On

So, reviewing and reflecting on the last few weeks...

At Santiago
Who knew that my mild obsession with Celine Dion would come in handy in Ecuador, of all places? My class of 9 girls has music class usually once a week, and they´ve been working on the beginning do-re-mi steps (ah yes, The Sound of Music obsession comes in handy as well...) of playing the piano (keyboard, really). Not that exciting, right? Of course not, thats why most of them would spend the class listening to the pre-set song ¨My Heart Will Go On¨ (Titanic is popular here). So in a sudden burst of inspiration, I realized I could easily learn how to play the song and teach them.* All of a sudden I´m the coolest teacher everrrrr and in high demand during music class. The girls love it and its really great to get them excited to learn something. I´m even taking this to the next level and will be showing the Las Vegas concert performance of the song on dvd in the next class, and doing a little English lesson with it too.** ¡Qué chévere!

A few weeks ago I had a nice meeting with our boss Alexandra about the girls in my class--I asked what their home lives are like, where they come from. Turns out most live with domestic abuse from either their mother, father, or sisters; theres a aunt-neice pair in my class (2yrs apart i think) that live with an alcoholic mother-grandmother; one of the 16yr olds spent a few years living with a boyfriend and ¨has seen more life than anyone at her age should¨. Some only live with one parent, some with stepparents, its all over the place. Anything but stable home lives, really. Living in cane houses in the swampy barrios of Guayaquil, 47 out of the 50-something students in the school live in extreme poverty, and a good chunk are malnourished. Lately I like to talk to them about what they want to be when the grow up--a doctor, an engineer (followed by the question ´whats an engineer?´´), a teacher, a model, a singer. Today while waiting for their teacher to come Wendy was drawing me whatever I asked her to draw. She drew herself as a plain stick figure. She drew Jesus with really big ears (´for listening´, she said), and with a stick in his hand (´for teaching´).

Starting next week, Kasia and I will be full-blown English teachers. We´ll be taking the Module 2 and Module 3 girls English classes to reduce the workload of the current teacher, teaching 4 times a week. Hmm. Good thing we´re flexible and quick learners. I´m excited and intimidated. Vamos a ver.

At Manos Abiertas
Just absolutely beautiful every day, and sometimes heartbreaking. Jordy has won my heart. He just turned 5--he told us his birthday was yesterday, but his older brother Bryan just shrugged and said he didn´t know if its his birthday or not because their mom didn´t say anything to him. Too cute. He loves paper airplanes and his favorite color is yellow, but still has a hard time distinguishing colors. In the last month he´s definitly made progress in counting to 10, but doesn´t always recognize the numbers. I´ve basically never worked with kids before coming here, so can someone tell me at what age in the States kids normally can count to 10 and know colors? He has the tiniest hands, small enough to reach into the prison of the human heart and unlock it.***

We had our first paseo (field trip) three weeks ago. We took 22 of our kids to a park in the center of Durán. This day held one of my favorite ecua-moments so far. Taking the bus out to 28 de Agosto to pick the kids up, we saw the kids waiting for us on the side of the road where we usually get off. When they saw the bus they started jumping up and down and waving, and they ran up to us once we got off, shouting ¨paseo! paseo¨ They were dressed up in their nicest clothes and freshly bathed; the boys had their hair wet and slicked to the side and the girls were just adorable in color-coordinated outfits. Seeing the excitement on their faces as the bus pulled up was just incredible, and I felt so so so blessed to be a part of something so much greater than myself that allows these kids the opportunity to learn, live, and love in new ways. It was an amazing afternoon, hot as hell, but great. We brought a disposable camera with us, and I took pictures of the prints, so I´ll post them on my flickr account ya mismo.

I´m starting to figure out what loving discipline is. I witnessed domestic abuse last night while visiting a neighbor. Yep, a mom whipped her son for not eating dinner. Today at Manos, I was with the homework kids, and Joice (12 maybe) shut down and began to cry because she didn´t want to do her homework. Her cousin Julisa (7) told me that she was crying because if she didn´t do her homework, her dad would beat her. So if nothing else, if I do nothing this year other than be someone that does not beat these kids when they misbehave, I´ll be alright with that. Of course, the goal is to bring a little bit of justice to their lives by loving them in the fullest sense of the word. There´s no more that I could do than that.

In faith
God speaks Spanish. Duh, right? Well i don´t. Actually, i´m getting there... Anyway. I´m starting to find a lot of spiritual nourishment in certain prayers, songs, conversations with priests and nuns....all in Spanish, this funny language that i started learning only 6 months ago. But come on, eeeeveryone here speaks Spanish aaaaaaall the time and sometimes it just exhausts me, and now God is speaking to me in Spanish too? Can´t I get a break? But really, the language is capable of expressing certain sentiments and provoking certain thoughts or imagery that i´ve just never encountered in English before. It´s awesome.

Regarding the nuns...
Kasia and i met some seriously awesome nuns through Santiago. Their order, Servants of the Plan of God, is part of the Christian Life Movement (also seriously awesome). 4 of them showed up at Santiago one day to give a small concert. Yea, they´re musically talented and in their 20s and 30s and really, I´ve never met more gracious, generous, loving people in my life. Hermana Claudia is now something of my Spiritual Director, and what an adventure it is to try to express the depths of your soul to a Colombian lady you´ve known for 2 weeks in a foreign language. Yet she really, really gets it.


I´m late for dinner. Coming soon...

-more on faith
-a few words on community
-a reflection on motherhood in Ecuador
-the joy of being unnecessary
-why you should read Pedagogy of the Oppressed (don´t wait for the blog, start reading it now.)


Peace.



*Thanks mom for forcing me to take piano lessons as a kid.
**Thanks Carolyn!
***All credit to Jean Vanier, author of Community and Growth for this imagery. Speaking of the book, READ IT, especially if you are currently living in community. Soooooo good. Hey, since when did I start using contextual footnotes in a blog?