The Little Things in Life...

“Do ordinary things with extraordinary love” – Mother Theresa

At home I am constantly staying “it’s the little things in life.” Senior year of college I could have referred to a great cup of coffee from Shrewsberry Street or company in the library to chat and eat peanut butter m&ms with while embarking on an all-nighter to complete that paper that was put off. This year, again, I feel like I am constantly saying “oh the little things,” but in reference to the most simple aspects of life and my day. I have always believed that life, lessons, and God are all found in the most simple moments and mundane tasks of our day. This has proved very true in Ecuador.

I saw the quotation by Mother Theresa, “Do ordinary things with extraordinary love,” and wrote it on the top of my agenda page for that week. In constantly rereading it I realized that this is one of those intangible gifts my neighbors have taught me by example – how to do even the most mundane tasks with extraordinary love. It was evident in everything this past week.

Celebrating with banana bread

A few weekends ago we celebrated Rosa´s 91st birthday. To show our love and share in the celebration we baked yet another banana bread, or “pan de gringo” as many Ecuadorians now refer to it. Mike brought along his guitar and we stumbled through the Spanish version of Feliz Cumpleaños before singing it in English. It was a simple afternoon spent singing and eating banana bread outside of Rosa´s little tienda. I was greatly humbled when upon leaving Rosa expressed her deep gratitude and told her grandchildren that while we come from a great distance away, she considers us family. She really hit home the point for me that small gestures, like our Happy Birthday song in broken Spanish or a mere willingness to sit and be present, really does mean something.

With the Youth Group after the Base Communities event

Last week was an active week at Hogar de Cristo. First, Ana´s women´s group along with all the base communities that the pastoral office at Hogar de Cristo collaborates with united at Hogar for an event. As the party occurred right outside of my office, and I couldn´t work when our church´s youth group played wonderful music for the event, I joined in. There was a tangible energy among this group of faith-inspired women praying, singing, and dancing together.

Community group anniversary party for Hogar de Cristo

This past Saturday my office at Hogar de Cristo celebrated the two year anniversary of one of our community groups in Mount Sinai. It was an all day event! The morning and afternoon was spent playing games, which all the women enthusiastically invited Mike and me to participate in, like a sack race, an egg race, soccer games, and a judge for the miss sports “pageant”. At night we returned with all of the Rostro volunteers for the dance. An Ecuadorian neighbor I met earlier in the day tried teaching me all the dances – cumbia, salsa, reggaeton – and we definitely provided many laughs in our stumbling attempt to dance latina. Again…poco a poco!

A little bit before ripping my pants and knee open!

My favorite part of the day was soccer! When I got to the party in the morning all the men had a tournament going. I knew all the women from the community group and also some who participate in the group of microcredit that I am accompanying. I asked if we could get a game of women going, and with the help of another woman we organized it. Boy, did I not know what I was getting myself into! Just like most everything else here in Ecuador, I was doing something very familiar in an unfamiliar way. We played 5 vs. 5 in the dirt street scattered with rocks. I was playing in my nice khaki capris (not knowing that I would be playing soccer that afternoon) and 5 year old sneakers. Well, as will probably not come as a surprise to any of you, I got into the game, was a little competitive, and fell going for the ball – ripping my capris open and tearing open my knee pretty badly. At first, I was embarrassed. But the energy of the women and the crowd lifted me, and of course I continued playing. The president of the community group ran out onto the field during play to trade shoes with me and everybody watching began chanting “Coli, Coli” every time we were close to scoring. So while we scored no goals, I ended up playing with shoes 2 sizes too big for me, and I was left bloody and bruised, community was still built. These things didn´t matter to the women, just my willingness to play alongside of them. While the physical aspects of the game in no way resembled the game of soccer I grew up playing, the energy, passion, and community built from sharing in the game was clearly still present. I´ve ran into almost all of these women around Mt Sinai since and every one, like any good mother, asks about my knee and reminds me of all the precautions I need to take to treat it.

My office takes pictures of everything...small meeting on Microcredit

On top of all these fun events, we have continued to get more and more comfortable with our routine here in Sinai. I continue to meet with the women of the microcredit group and will begin preparing a workshop soon. We continue to share time at the afterschool program Ave María, which always provides great dinner discussions catching up on what happened that day for the two volunteers who went – both successes and troubles!

It has always been the little parts of my day – a meal shared with a neighbor, ripping my pants open playing soccer, or singing a unique rendition of Happy Birthday – that is my “high” of the day. Finding a way to do and to accept the ordinary things with love is a gift.

Love and miss you all,
Colleen

Week´s recap in pictures

Hi friends!

Airport run!

I thought I would give a small recap of our past week or so with pictures. First, on September 15^th our new In-Country Director arrived in Ecuador. The next few weeks will be filled with orientations and the transition between two directors. We got together with the Duran volunteers to greet her at the airport and provide a warm Rostro welcome. We spent the night with our Arbolito friends, which is always a treat. Chris and I got up early on Saturday morning to make his recipe for banana pancakes for all the vols. The pancakes were a nice reminder of home and eating them at all hours of the day and night on Williams 3 last year!

With the Jesuit novitiates at work

Mike and I have continued to work with the three Jesuit novitiates in our office this month. Unfortunately Thursday is their last day – we have had a lot of fun working with them and getting to know them. Like I mentioned in my last post, we are holding after school tutoring programs in different neighborhoods every day as this month’s project. It has been really great to be out and about in Mount Sinai every single day working and making new friends. In the coming weeks Mike and I will have to work out how or if we will continue with the program. On top of working, the Jesuits have brought a lot of life to the office. Our spare time in the office we passed doing everything from chatting about our distinct cultures, their Jesuit formation process or Wilo giving me salsa dance lessons (which is still definitely a work in progress!).

Any unoccupied time I’ve had in the office I’ve spent reading Poor Economics – A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. I was really captivated by a presentation given by Duflo at Holy Cross last year and brought the book along with me to Ecuador. It covers varies topics like health, hunger, microcredit, incentives, businesses, aid programs, and more. For me it has been extremely interesting to read while living in Mount Sinai. I witness the statistics given in 3-D form everyday in my daily life and hear similar testimonies as given in the book during casual conversations with neighbors. I’m learning a lot!

One last update from my Hogar de Cristo work – last week I met with the leader and a few women who collaborate with the Hogar de Cristo microcredit office. I’ll be meeting with a larger group of women this week to learn more about the process and how I may be able to accompany them or provide workshops on finance topics that would be helpful.

Dinner with Arbolito

This past weekend we again spent with the Arbolito community. First, Friday was our all Rostro de Cristo day of reflection. After a day of reflection, journaling, and logistics, Megan (our current In-Country Director) kindly made us all a lasagna dinner! We shared a great meal and then spent the rest of the night playing 2 vs. 2 soccer on our little patio. The next day we all woke up early to construct two Hogar de Cristo cane houses together with the 3 Jesuit novitiates out in the campo.

House Build 1

House Build 2 - Completed Home

House Build 3

House Build 4 - With the family

Mount Sinai is filled with these cane homes. They are lifted up on stilts because during the rainy season the flooding, especially for homes near the canal, is treacherous. The homes cost $1000 and the family can pay piece by piece – putting down a $50 down payment and then paying $25 a month for 3 years. Because of the level of poverty in Mount Sinai many homes are donated or given at a reduced rate of about $14 a month. They are simple – the chilly winds pierce through the cane at night and it is just one large room with one divider – but they are extremely popular.

With the (huge!) help of a Hogar employee, 8 of us constructed the Hogar home in exactly 5 hours! We dug the holes to put the poles in, then laid the flooring, then put up the pre-constructed walls, and then finished with a tin roof. When we climbed down after hammering in the last nails the family had already begun to make this house a home. Streamers hung, a table was set up, the little kids were blowing up balloons, and the parents and uncles set up benches. It was a really great day and a unique opportunity to build a relationship with a family whose house we built.

Night with the novitiates

That night Mike, Ana, and I went back with our three Jesuit novitiate friends to spend the afternoon with them. Since we met them they have insisted that we come swim in their pool and spend time with them outside of Hogar. We swam, shared a delicious meal, participated in mass, and then met a few of the other Jesuit residents. On our way home they took a few pit stops to see sights of Guayaquil along the boardwalk.

Yapangacho

The rest of the week has been spent in neighborhood time – literally just hanging out, tutoring, and cooking with our neighbors. One of the greatest ways the women of the community have ministered to us and opened up their lives to us is through their cooking. Most every neighbor asks us how the cooking is going on and if we have moved on from cooking just rice and lentils yet. When all we do is laugh they swoop in like any loving mother would and offer to cook with us. Our most recent cooking lesson was on Yapangacho (sp?): potato pancakes with a peanut butter sauce, fried eggs, salad, rice, and hot dogs. We are slowly but surely learning to cook Ecuadorian.

I’ll end this post with a funny (well now) story about my attempts to slowly let go. I wrote in a previous post about my current focus on embracing this feeling of lack of control in nearly every aspect of life. This week a group of women were in my office working with another employee on an upcoming workshop. Upon finishing they asked me for my help. The women were taking a course on haircutting at Hogar de Cristo and needed heads to practice on. With some hesitation I agreed – how could I say no when 6 women were standing with smiling, pleading faces. We get to the salon across the Hogar property and I learn that these women actually do not know how to cut hair yet. One woman was put in the middle as the example and the “professor” taught how to cut hair as all the women furiously took notes. As you can imagine, a little bit of anxiety rose in me. I never realized the control and importance I placed on my own physical appearance. What came to mind as I sat there for the first few minutes of silence as she began cutting my hair was our reflection during all RdC on simplicity. Simplicity can also be interpreted as letting go – of all those things that prevent us from being fully present to or building honest relationships with ourselves, our neighbors, and our God. So in that moment, I decided to let go of what may happen to my hair and I engaged in conversation with the woman, learning all about her life and her hopes for starting her own salon one day to support her family. It was a difficult and honestly stressful morning, but I did learn something from the experience. And all ended well – the “professor” went around at the end and fixed everybody’s hair. Another interesting day at the office…

Love and miss you all,

Colleen

La herencia de los vulnerables

Hi friends!

Abrazos from Ecuador! This blog post will end up being all over the place, but I hope to share a few activities and prevalent themes of our last few weeks work.

First, Mount Sinai made the news! Two all-star Hogar de Cristo volunteers from Spain and Chile presented their two-year collaborative project entitled “La herencia de los vulnerables” (The inheritance of the vulnerables). They first presented this to the presidents of the eight community groups in Mount Sinai one night in the neighborhood. Then Ecuavisa, a national and international television program, came to Mount Sinai to film interviews of the community leaders’ opinions and needs and take footage of the dire state of some sectors. The main topics covered were the legalization of land, quality of life, informal work, education, and the natural risks during the rainy season. This concluded with a book launching this past week at La Universidad Catolica de Guayaquil where the volunteers published their findings and presented it to a few government officials. Not only was it amazing to accompany the community and Hogar de Cristo throughout this exciting time, but the nerd in me LOVED all the presentations – I learned a lot!

A few people throughout the week told us what a big deal this publicity was. The only times Mount Sinai makes the news is for a murder or crime that occurs – and therefore the only perception most other Ecuadorians have of Mt Sinai is as a dangerous place to never visit. Never has there been a news crew here to film the actual state of poverty. To actually recognize the humanity of the people living here. It was an inspiring and humbling experience to see both the excitement and nerves the people of Mount Sinai had before going on camera (Mike and I gave out many hugs and high fives before and after). It had me questioning how often anybody actually asks them themselves what their needs are or their daily life is like.

El Universo, a newspaper, also published an article. (http://www.eluniverso.com/2012/09/04/1/1445/monte-sinai-vive-condiciones-vulnerabilidad.html). For you non-Spanish speakers, try popping it into Google translate to at least get the gist of it.

One of my other jobs here is as the Rostro de Cristo accountant. While I have never even taken an accounting class, I’m excited to learn. This past week I had my first closing of all August cash and expenses. I’ve clearly already adjusted to “Ecuatime” because I began going through the receipts around 7pm Thursday night when they were due 7am on Friday morning – as you all know, I am not typically the procrastinating type. I was bummed that I had to miss out on part of the volunteer dinner with the Santa Clara group in country and was dreading what looked like a couple hours of work after a long day of working. Literally as I pulled the first receipt out of the envelope, the power went out (happens often and at random times). All I could do in that moment was laugh and say “God does have a sense of humor.” So I accounted by candle light and entered the info into a little notebook. This was just another moment of needing to take a step back, recognize that most everything is out of our control in this year, and all I can really do is accept that and adjust. Ecuador continues to humble me – everyday things I’ve always taken for granted like consistent electricity or access to a computer is no longer a given. This small moment reminded me of a quotation from the book I just finished Gracias! By Henry Nouwen, an account of his 6 month stay as a Maryknoll missioner in Peru (highly recommend the book as well):

“All the functions of life, which previously hardly required attention, are complicated and time consuming operations here: washing, cooking, writing, cleaning, and so on. The winds cover everything with this layers of dust, water has to be hauled up in buckets from below and boiled to be drinkable, there is seldom a moment of privacy with kids walking in and out all the time, and thousands of loud sounds make silence a far away dream…Living here not only makes me aware that I have never been poor, but also that my whole way of being, thinking, feeling, and acting is molded by a culture radically different from the one that I live in now. I am surrounded by so many safety systems that I would not be allowed to become truly poor…I am not poor as my neighbors are. I will never be and will not ever be allowed to be by those who sent me here. I have to accept my own history and live out my vocation, without denying that history.”

Additionally, in accordance with reading the book Gracias!, I have been thinking a lot about gratitude and humility in these past weeks. I come from a place of privilege in a number of ways (health, economic stability, education, etc etc) and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can humbly enter into this community and accompany through my work at Hogar de Cristo with gratitude. Last week during our spirituality night we reflected on a bible passage that for me really connected on this theme: “When he looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins. He said, ‘I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood’” (Luke 21:1-4)

This passage is so clearly evident in our everyday life here. People are constantly giving to us from a place of poverty. Even though they may be making it by day to day in terms of money, they will ALWAYS feed us a plate of food if we are visiting, and usually give us the largest plate. From their place of poverty, they not only offer us their endless hospitality and love, but what little they have to eat as well. Upon hearing this passage, I began reflecting on how I, as a volunteer, can give from my own places of poverty within myself as well. Not just participating in the community in the ways that come most easy, like joining into a soccer game with kids or cooking with the mothers, but giving in even those manners that are difficult or uncomfortable for me.

To wrap this up I’ll just list a few other things we’ve been up to: There are three Ecuadorian Jesuit novitiates working in our office at Hogar de Cristo for this month. Mike and I have had fun getting to know them and we have been working with them to run after school extra help in the neighborhoods (it’s nice to speak English for a bit as we help with English homework!). I’ve also been accompanying another volunteer who is giving a three-part workshop series on intra-family violence to groups of women in the community. Our first US retreat group from Santa Clara University was here for a week staying in Duran – we had a great day in Sinai with them introducing them to neighbors and our parish life. I’ve become the resident baker – we have been baking banana breads for birthdays and celebrations. Ecuadorians have never had it, but love it and call it “pan de gringo”. I’m also slowly learning how to cook like an Ecuadorian – our neighbors love to share recipes and cooking tips – we are all going to a neighbor’s home tomorrow for lunch to cook and eat Yapingacho (spelling? haha). There’s so so much more to share, but all’s good in Ecuador.

Love and miss you all!
Colleen

Photo Blog

Hi Friends,

All is well in Ecuador. Things have slowly picked up as we get into our routines and continue to meet new neighbors and friends. As a result, I haven´t had time to sit down and write a blog post, and thought instead I would share a few photos from our first month here in Ecuador....

The decision...

Orientation - the whole RdC/JVC crew

First dinner in our new home

First time swimming in the Pacific Ocean! (Day at Las Playas with all volunteers)

Visiting Grego´s family in Nobol

St. Narcisa de Jesus

Dinner with Padre John

Mt Sinai at night

Iguana Park

Maleconn lighthouse (Guayaquil)

Guayaquil at night - view from lighthouse

ALL PHOTO CREDIT TO MIKE - City of Guayaquil

 

Mt Sinai

Mt Sinai

Mt Sinai

Poco a Poco: Reflections on Our First Month...

View of Mt Sinai from Church Bell Tower

This past Wednesday (Aug 22^nd) marked our first complete month in Ecuador! It still feels a bit surreal, even one month later. At times I still catch myself taking in these surroundings as our new home as I see a new face or landmark. It is impossible to accurately paint a picture of what this month has been – to encapsulate the feelings of joy felt in breaking bread with our new Ecuadorian neighbors; sorrow in learning about the grave and often unjust situations Mount Sinai citizens experience; uncertainty as we take our first solo steps around the neighborhood and attempt to engage in conversation in Spanish; and excitement at each small success (and I mean small at times - like just nailing a new Spanish phrase) we experience poco a poco. The best I feel I can do at this point to share the experience is to share a few ideas and questions that I’ve been journaling and praying about.

First and foremost, it has been a slow transition process to our new lives here, especially to the level of poverty we will experience. I took a moment to jot in my journal: “We are halfway through our second full day in Ecuador and I cannot fully grasp that these surroundings will be my reality for the next full year. I see dirt roads. I see cane houses. I see trash burning in the streets. I wonder if I will ever be desensitized by the poverty that surrounds me. While it would make my daily life easier, I hope not” (7/24/12). However, it has probably taken me about the entire month to fully let the level of poverty here hit me. Often times these are the streets and the faces that get pushed aside, that get ignored, that people turn their heads away from. In order to enter into this year, I believe part of that is opening my heart to this situation and allowing my heart to be broken open.

One of the biggest obstacles I have faced in this first month, in attempting to live poco a poco and relish in every small success, is letting go. Letting go of the diet I am used to. To the exercise routines I had. To the comforts of home in the US. To my health at times. Honestly, to all control in general. However, that is the reality of the poor. While we live in the same neighborhood, attend the same mass, eat the same food, we will never reach solidarity with the poor. In this year I will never face the same fears and uncertainties. I will never understand what it is like to not know where my next meal will come from. I will never understand fear around receiving medical care. The best I feel I can do is to embrace this loss of control, this uncertainty as experiencing some sense of solidarity with the poor.

Since we have arrived many neighbors we have visited ask us why we came or what work we will be doing here. At times, it feels discouraging to think of the many needs this community has and question what a bunch of recent college graduates can do to address them. However, week by week I think I discover more ways that God intends to use my community mates and me as an instrument of His service. For instance, this past week we had Silvia, the coordinator of church programming, over for dinner. During the school vacation the church hosts a type of camp and invites each of us volunteers to come and teach workshops or skills we may have. She went around asking us what talents we have, giving the example of music and dance from years past. When she got to me I laughed saying I definitely have no musical or artistic talents, but I can play soccer and basketball. She didn’t know why I was downplaying my ability to play sports as a female. She said what an impact seeing a female playing sports with confidence could have on the younger females. This gave me some seed of hope. That while I can do nothing to combat the deeply rooted machismo culture of Latin America, that I may somehow be able to serve as a role model for young girls on their ability to break gender norms, to live empowered lives, and to be symbols of strength.

In my own opinion, half of any friendship or relationship is just showing up. Just sitting in the stands of a sports game or concert with a smiling, supportive face. Or giving a high five after a small success. Words aren’t even necessary. Due to our limited Spanish vocabulary, I have both been embracing this idea and noticing the beauty of simply being present to another. While at times it is easy to feel useless amongst the countless needs the community has, maybe there is value in just our physical presence. Maybe there is value in being an example of a strong female figure playing soccer with the boys. Or a smiling face as mass willing to be dorky, awkward, and stupid stumbling over the words and accompanying hand motions of songs. Or just a willingness to sit in the homes of our neighbors and simply listen. One book that I have been slowly rereading during our time here is Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle. One thing that stood out to me when I first read it a few months ago was his ability to remember each homie’s name. What power there is in being called by name, in recognizing the innate human dignity we all possess. So, while at times I’ve questioned what we are doing here, what we can complete, how we can assist the lives of our neighbors (especially without fluency in Spanish yet!), for this first month I have really just focused on saying hello to every neighbor I pass, calling them by name, and trying to convey my willingness to sit or to walk with them.

While this in no way can summarize what a month this has been, I hope that this better paints a picture of what has been running through my mind as I’ve taken my first steps in Ecuador.

Love and miss you all,

Colleen

Más de una casa, un hogar (More than a house, a home)

Sun setting over our neighborhood; taken over our wall

 Hi friends!

Week 2 in our job placements is going well and we are all starting to find our niches and get into a routine. Mike (the other Rostro vol working in Proyecto Misión) and I have been working out a schedule and reading a lot this week on the Hogar de Cristo organization, the demographics of Mount Sinai, and the National Development plan of President Rafael Correa. Additionally, all of us are helping out once a week at Ana´s after school program called Ave María (I go every Tuesday). It services children in the Mount Sinai area whose parents work very late or who have very rough home situations. And lastly, I am the Rostro de Cristo accountant and hope to learn more through this position on the inner-workings of an international non-profit.

I wanted to focus this post on my primary placement, community organizing at Hogar de Cristo. In order to understand the work I will be doing, it is first important to grasp the situation we live in now.

Mount Sinai is an invasion community that is 5-9 years old and has about 50,000 inhabitants. Plots of former farm and swamp land were sold by a pseudo-owner and residents from the city and mountains flocked here for the opportunity to own their own land. Although the residents paid for their land, the government does not recognize the land as legally theirs because it was sanctioned off for agricultural use before the land-trafficer sold it. Working towards legalizing the land with community leaders is one of the primary objectives of my office.

These communitties face unique challenges as it is not recognized as legal land. We have no running water - water is delivered by a truck to our home about once a month. We have only one paved road leading up to our neighborhood. In the dry season the dust causes many lung related issues and in the rainy season the mud will make some roads inpassable. We have no electric meters in Mt Sinai. Most all electricity is stolen, and frequent power outages are common. The homes here are most often single cane houses built on stilts for protection during the rainy season (Hogar de Cristo provides cane home for $25 per month over 3 years and donates them to those in desperate conditions).

The target group of citizens living in Mt Sinai of the project live in grave, difficult, and complex conidtions. 8% of people over the age of 10 cannot read or writeñ a grave difficulty in finding work and earning wages for your family. Only 7.2% of the homes have access to water through the public network - 87% have access through water trucks, wells, etc which pose health risks. 45% work in commercial jobs, domestic jobs, and in informal manners. 24.9% homes make less than $200 per month and 57% make between $200 and $499.

In collecting the above data, the (translated) objective of the project of my office is to identify 200 vulnerable families from the Mt Sinai sector to participate in a process of changes in order to better the conditions of life in their territory and to take advantage of teh existing resources and opportunitites for development.

I´ll end with a quotation from Padre Alberto Hurtado, S.J. (founder of Hogar de Cristo) that really resonated with me during our orientation:

Ante cada problema, ante los grandes de la tierra, ante los problemas políticos de nuestro tiempo, ante los pobres, ante sus dolores y miserias, ante la defección de colaboradores, ante la escasez de operarios, ante la insuficiencia de nuestras obras: ¿qué haría Cristo si estuvieron en mi lugar?

-Padre Alberto Hurtado, S.J.

(Faced with each problem, faced with the greatness of the land, faced with the political problems of our time, faced with the poor, faced with their pains and miseries, faced with the defection of collaborators, faced with the scarcity of production, faced with the insufficiency of our works: What would Christ do if he were in my place?

Love and miss you all,
Colleen

Mt Sinai volunteers, old and new, at our last dinner together

This is our first week alone as Rostro volunteers, all the amazing ¨veteran¨volunteers left on Saturday. Last week we wrapped up orientation by discerning worksite placements for each volunteer after visiting them all, doing massive clean ups of the volunteer houses and had a fun day at the beach. For me and for many others it was our first time swimming in the Pacific Ocean - add in the peanut butter sandwiches we had for lunch and it was a perfect day!

I am excited to share that I will be working at a Jesuit organization called Hogar de Cristo in the office Proyecto Mejoramiento del Habitat y Desarrollo de las familias de Monte Sinai (basically community organizing). The organization approaches development and sustainability from many angles - some other offices include health, pastoral ministry, education, microfinance, and social agriculture. I´m hoping to have the opportunity to attend some of the workshops hosted by the microfinance office and collaborate on a few projects. It should be a great learning experience. I´m hoping to be able to explore all the different offices because I love the mission of the organization. We just learned yesterday that the vision of Hogar is ¨Estamos contribuyendo a la restitution de los derechos de las personas en mayor situacion de pobreza, vulnerabilidad o exclusion, incidiendo en transformaciones estructurales hacia una sociedad mas justa, equitativa, e incluyente en el Ecuador¨ (We are contributing to the restitution of the rights of people in situations of poverty, vulnerability or exclusion, influencing structural transformations towards a more just, equal, and inclusive society in Ecuador).

The first week at Hogar is going well - yesterday we had an all day orientation to the organization filled with many introductions and presentations. The woman leading the day said one things when speaking on the importance of the Jesuit identity of the organization that really resonated with me. She said that when she first began working, one of the Jesuit priests asked how she arrived here. She listed previous worksites and contacts at Hogar who helped her. The priest corrected her saying ´you are here with the accompaniment of God -this is exactly where God needs  you to be¨. She really had me questionin how often in the past few months as I´ve been questioned why I am choosing to volunteer for a year with Rostro de Cristo I have asked or responded to the questions ¨God why have you brought me here, what do you want of me? and then offered up my gifts in service.

Now that we are starting to settle in after our first two weeks of transition a few thoughts from orientation have continually resurfaced. First, back in Boston when we asked Rostro and JVC alums who came to present or hang out for advice, most had one similar answer - a smile, sometimes a chuckle, and ´you have no idea what lays ahead´. The alums were right - everything here is different than we envisioned and it´s interesting to think now, as we begin building relationships, how these neighbors will shape our year in Ecuador and our lives in general. While terrifying, yes, not knowing what is ahead, what a gift to be able to enter into this year with an open heart and and open heart with the most valuable thing we have to offer is simply our love.

Secondly, I was told ´you will feel alive everyday.´ These first weeks I have felt, I mean truly experienced, every single moment with all 5 senses. Feeling even those intangible concepts, like love, in tangible ways.

Lastly, an Ecuadorian phrase that we´ve heard repeatedly and are all trying to embrace is ´poco a poco´. (little by little) While we may daily express how nice it would be to wake up fluent in Spanish tomorrow, we can find life in the struggle in between. I am trying to slow down and embrace and appreciate each individual step of the journey.

While we are all doing well and enjoying our new placements and neighborhoods, I try to remain conscious of not romanticizing the poverty. The conditions many of our neighbor live in is grave and unjust. The land we live on isn´t even legalized by the government. Most of this first week at Hogar has been spent reading about the demographics and needs of the community and at some point in the future I hope to put together a summary to share with you all. So while it is easy in this honeymoon phase to almost envy the love, hospitality, etc of the poor, I am trying not to romanticize the situation tha they do not want to be living in. I cannot come into community organizing with any solutions either, just a willingness to accompnay and empower others to foster change. I think it will be a difficult, humbling, yet growth-inspiring process.

Love and miss you all!
Colleen