To my right there’s a pile of jeans, toiletries, shoes and fleece jackets all waiting to be packed. To my left, there’s an empty REI backpack (it’s new, I love it), my recently acquired Ecuador Visa, my passport and (thanks to mom) a trusty money belt. I leave for Ecuador in about 33 hours and wow, I’m excited. This is really happening!
I imagine the rest of the Ecuador team feels the same way. The month of August has been spent scrambling to get Visas (quite a difficult process, as it turns out), finalizing flights, tying up things State-side, and being jealous of Mark (since he’s already been there for a month now). It’s okay though, because in less than a week we’ll all be together in Quito.
Speaking of Mark, his month in Quito has been pretty incredible. Working with UBECI (the non-profit we’re partnering with), he’s been teaching various classes (English, math, etc.) twice a day, playing baseball (Ecuadorian style), laying in hammocks, playing the “requínto” (a small guitar) and eating lots of home-cooked Ecuadorian food. And, true to Mark style, he’s (verbatim) been “thinking too hard and too much about Ecuador’s macroeconomic growth.”
This next month we’ll all be staying with host families in Quito and taking Spanish lessons (and dancing and cooking classes!) at Guayasamin Language School (www.guayasaminschool.com/), in addition to familiarizing ourselves with Santa Isabel and San Francisco, the communities where we plan on working.
Some fun links you might want to check out:
1. Photos -
http://mannaproject.smugmug.com/Ecuador
2. Videos -
http://youtube.com/user/MannaEcuador
3. Mark’s location on Google Earth –
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=k&hl=es&msa=0&ll=-0.34294,-78.482981&spn=0.00243,0.003616&z=18&om=1&msid=103233291434980264922.000437fd3133e1961e863
4. Our monthly updates blog –
http://mpiecuador.blogspot.com/
And on that note, I’m going to go pack now.
Cheers!
Abbie
Mark and kids in Ecuador
painting faces!
