Journey to the Center of the Earth!

Went on an adventure to the center of the earth on Tuesday. Middle of the earth. The EQUATOR! Learned many facts today at the equator.

1. Water in a drain goes straight down at the equator (no swirling). BUT just a few feet north of the equator, the water spins clockwise…a few feet south and the water goes counterclockwise. MIND BLOWING!
2. You weigh less on the equator because the force of gravity is actually less.
3. It is impossible to balance and egg on a nail in any part of the earth besides the equator because of the centrifugal forces on the yolk make it too difficult.
4. Um…some other stuff that I can’t remember.

After our “Mitad del Mundo” visit, we visited an old Cathedral in the old city of Quito. That was my first time in a Cathedral that big, but it was overwhelming how huge it was! I have no idea how they built that…or even fathomed it. One thing interesting about the Basilica was that it had gargoyles...but they were like iguanas, turtles, monkeys, and dolphin gargoyles in honor of the Galapagos Islands.

We also got a tour in the Presidential Palace, so it’s like the white house of Quito. We found a latin love for my good friend Sarah at the presidential palace…a latin love tour guide. He may or may not be the only man we’ve met taller than her. I think things will work out for them really well.

Guinea Pigs and Swine Flu

Monday we spent most of the day in Otavalo touring with the Benson Institute. It was set up in 1982, and they teach able families how to farm and use their land well. Ezra Taft Benson was the president of the LDS church and was also the Secretary of Agriculture for the U.S. So the Benson Institute was formed through BYU as a way to see how to improve agriculture in developing countries where the death rates were high. The people from the institute go and teach the people about how to use their land. We visited 4 homes, and they all seemed to have chickens, and cuy(guinea pig) and grow corn, herbs, and other vegetables. Yep, these cute little guinea pigs are some sort of delicacy here. (We tried one later, but there was hardly any meat on it. Pretty sick...all organs and teeth intact. But you could guess that yep, it still tasted like chicken..like everything else!)


We also met an 89-year-old midwife up in the farmlands who had been delivering babies since she was 20! She was pretty funny. We asked her a lot about her techniques, and she just sat on a stump for a half an hour talking...although not many of the fluent speakers understood her too well. I think she was combining 2 languages. But one thing I did understand was that she buried the placentas in the field behind her...so this is the midwife and the placenta field! She also had a pig that I obviously wanted to pet. Then we were told to leave him alone or we might get swine flu...bring it on.

The last great thing we did yesterday was take a little boat ride in a lake by a volcano called Cuicocha. A dormant volcano, that is. One crazy thing about the lake was that you can see gas emissions bubbling up from the bottom of the lake! Wished I would have seen some T Rexs or Brontosauruses because it felt like Jurassic Park. It was so beautiful though. Everything yesterday actually. There's just so much up and down when we drive...SO MANY mountains. We said bye to Otavalo and then headed back to Quito where we'll be until we go home.

Karate Chop a Llama

Sunday we went to church in Otavalo. I guess there are like 20% members there, which seems like kind of a lot! The people there are so welcoming. In sacrament meeting, some of the songs were sung a capella and some played on the LDS hymn cds. Tricia and I went to Primary with all the little kids, and the girls in there were asking us all sorts of questions. Some 10 year olds were asking if we had any swine flu in Utah. Hah...funny that it's such a big thing that kids are even concerned about it. The other day in Guayaquil one guy came up to our van window trying to sell medical masks for swine flu protection.

After church we spent a lot of time outside reading on our little porch, talking, and walking around. Some of us decided to take pictures around the lake and the llamas in the little grassy area behind our cabin. Thus the karate kicking a llama. No harm done though...I was too afraid to get closer than a mile away.

We had devotional, as usual, and then we tried to build a fire in our fireplace because it get pretty cold at night. Didn't work so well. :/ Who knew we'd be wanting a fire in Ecuador?!

Otavalo

Welcome to our humble abode. We are now in Otavalo, Ecuador, and this is our quaint little cabin on Puertolago. We had an early flight yesterday, but it was only 35 minutes long. The best part of the flight was our eSnack time. I'm really obsessed with these Nestle Coco cracker/cookie things, and it was our lucky day!

The worst part of the trip was when we got SCAMMED at the airport. As we were loading our stuff onto the big tourism bus at the airport in Quito, some guys were acting like they were hired help, offering to load our stuff. I was still waiting for my luggage inside the airport when this all happened, so I missed it. But my friend got her backpack stolen with her money, passport, laptop, camera, scriptures...pretty much her whole life in there! It was so sad, and I felt sick that it all happened. She had such a good attitude about it and realized there wasn't anything to do about it besides report it to the police. It was a good wakeup call for all of us; I think we'll all be a lot more cautious.

We drove a few hours to Otovalo to do some shopping in the big open market place. TONS of stuff. Everyone kept getting lost in how big it was. It's the center for shopping in Ecuador because everyone brings in their crafts, jewelry, blankets, fruit, etc. This part of the country is very different than Guayaquil...more indigenous, more farming, weather is cooler, lots of mountains. It's so pretty! On our drive here we listened to some Andean Beatles, Phil Collins, and Frank Sinatra. Andean as in like pan flutes...so funny, but I actually like it!

These pictures are really messed up on my blog, but the picture in the middle is of a guy packing up his tent after the market thing. SO BIG! Those are so heavy and little old ladies carry them around too!

Bye Bye Guayaquil!

Last day in Guayaquil. We met with the Hogar de Cristo people and presented the information we gathered from the kids' health screenings. We got it done in time, and it all went well! On our way back to the hotel, we had a perma-smile contest for 33 minutes. Yep, 33 straight minutes of smiling. Other ways to keep us occupied during our times of waiting this week was MASH. Yeah, from like 3rd grade. What could be better than the possibility of living in a shack, marrying Billy Ray Cyrus, and working as a lotto ticket saleswoman on the street? Maybe a Gigapet. But none of those are currently available in Guayaquil.

For lunch we went to a restaurant on the Malecon because the Junta wanted to take us to lunch before we left. They gave us a bunch of appetizers, but we weren't really sure what they all were. There was fried Yucca, which is like a potato but starchier. Empanadas and humitas (a corn mush thing cooked in oil) were the only things we really knew, but it was interesting to try a little bit of everything. The Junta has been so great to us. They have driven us EVERYWHERE everyday and helped set up a lot we've done here.

This afternoon we had some time to go to the market and do a few last minute things before we leave Guayaquil...like go to Fragola and get our last ice cream! Tricia, Sarah, and I went to get the ice cream covered in chocolate, their specialty. Our good friend and loyal ice cream patron, Andres, was geared up with his swine flu mask to serve up a wonderful coconut ice cream cone covered in chocolate. How wonderful it was. (P.S. This one was a small!)

Funny 6th Graders

Today was our last day in the community doing health screenings. We went to a nicer school; I think it may have been private. The boy in this top picture was just so cute today. He started crying before he even got his finger poked...he started crying as soon as his vision was getting checked. So sad! Nothing a little candy couldn't help though. After we did some screenings, we went to a 6th grade classroom for kids to write down everything they had eaten in the past 24 hours and then circle the things they thought were healthy. The kids in the classroom didn't know where their teacher was. So after we collected the papers from them, one of the students came up to us with her notebook seeing if we would write our names on the paper. Then she asked if she could have our signatures. In about 2 seconds that turned into all 30 6th grades throwing their notebooks in our faces for us to sign. Hah, it was so funny. Like INSANE. We couldn't make our way through the crowd to leave even! Finally, Sarah got them to settle down and SIT down. The other two girls left the room, and just as I was walking out the door I took a picture of the kids nicely sitting down. But not at all really, cause they started CHARGING the door. (This picture of all the kids is just a glimpse of what was about to happen.) I booked it out of there, and the 3 of us ran out of there and down the stairs laughing so hard. That might have been my first time getting mobbed.

The rest of the day was free of any attacks. We went to the University of Guayaquil's nursing school to tour it. We got to talk with some of the students there, and I realized that I carried on a pretty long, normal conversation with a couple of the girls there (in Spanish). So that felt good! Then, tonight we sang at the church "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and "I Need Thee Every Hour." After us, the missionary choir sang. It was pretty short, but we ended up waiting for our ride twice as long as we were actually there.

Ciudad de Israel

Went into the community today to the Ciudad de Israel school. It's just a really little school with dirt floors and old, broken desks. We didn't have a table to set our stuff up on at all, so we just used a broken desk. We were going to do the health screenings outside, but the volunteers we were working with thought it'd be better inside. That turned out to be like 10 degrees hotter since the building was concrete. We survived though! And some of the children only barely survived the screenings...lots of screaming with the finger pokes. Kids are really good at clenching their fists!

It's late...so not much time to write things. The kids are cute.

Community. Day 2

Well today we were back in the Community. Ryan and I went to a place called the Subcentro to teach about hypertension and diabetes. After an invigorating discussion about both, we took blood sugars and blood pressures from the all the adults there.

So one thing about community is that you have to ride around A LOT to different places. First, we are picked up at the hotel at 7:30 by our driver, Luis, who takes us to Hogar de Cristo where we then get on a large school bus. The school bus picks up other workers and volunteers going out into the community, and then we get to the community center. From the community center, 10 of us load up into the back of an ambulance to go the school first, then the remaining people are dropped off at the Subcentro. We got there at 9:30 and ony stayed until a little past noon. It's all very interesting to just show up some place and start teaching like you know stuff. That's what it was pretty much at the Subcentro. We just got out of some ambulance, walked up to people sitting around the building, and started teaching with out posters. They like it though, so it works!

For some insane reason, Amber and I went running on the Malecon yesterday afternoon. It was a good run though, and I'm certain I heard someone whistling the Rocky theme song...I just couldn't tell where. Haha, I don't think that has ever even happened in the states in all my days of running.

After that, we went to the market and then got dinner (chicken, beans, and rice) for one dollar! Every meal was a dollar. It seemed to good to be true, thus, I took some extra precautions...and demonstrated in the photo.

We all went to a health fair at a church stake after that and didn't get back until 10:30, so it was a pretty busy day! We have a lot of loose ends to tie up for a few studies we're doing down here...so we're kinda in a time crunch. There was a lot of stress going around, but I'm hoping it'll all turn out okay...without people losing too much sleep!

Community...FINALLY!

This is finally the week that I get to go to the community schools and do the health screenings for the kids. YAY!
I helped with hemoglobin checks today...poked kids and then gave them candy! They were all super cute of course. The school has dirt floors and not many supplies, and the kids are there only until 12:30. (We had to work fast!) The boy and girl in this picture are brother and sisters. She stayed by his side during his poke, and he held her hand as they left school. The siblings seem to be more tight knit here, maybe just because they're more dependent on each other. I don't know, it's so cute though. In general, the kids just gather together a lot and help each other out. These kids in this othe picture gave me a popsicle/slushy thing when they were going home after school. It was kind of adorable that they did that! I couldn't eat it because of the water...so I felt bad throwing it away after they were gone, but it was still really cute. It was a good day. The low point was the 2 hour ride/wait/ride/look at a mechanical cow/ride to get back to the hotel. The van was not air conditioned so well, and there was 10 of us in there so we kind of were all gonna pass out! The "mechanical cow" happened to be a little soy bean squasher/processor for soy milk. The community got one to encourage families in the community to get calcium. I was very confused as to what it was we were going to go look at. When someone first mentioned a mechanical cow, I was envisioning a bull ride simulator. Hah...that's what happens usually. No one really knows what is next or what we're waiting for exactly. Lots of unknowns, but that's just a part of being in a different country!

Somethings are very predictable no matter where you are. Like Zac Efron, for example. Girls obsess over him no matter where you go. Half of the entertainment section of the newspaper today was about Zac Efron alone. Yep! Well, some of us girls needed some good ol' Zac Efron in our lives. We watched "17 again," or "17 otra vez" in Ecuador. Lucky for us, it was in English was Spanish subtitles! It was great acting like teenagers again, eating popcorn, and going to the theater for $3.00.

Wooden Pirates and Ward Choirs

We walked to the lighthouse again this afternoon. This is a handsome man I met while I was up there. Well, he's actually not a man. He's a wooden pirate. But I love him anyway.

Our last Sunday in Guayaquil. We made up a little choir and sang today in Sacrament meeting. Jacob, one of the students, gave a really good talk about families, and then we sang "Joseph Smith's First Vision" (in Spanish) to the tune of "Come Thou Fount." There was such a good feeling there while we sang, and I just felt a special link between and the people at church while we were singing, and it was because what happened as a result of that prayer that we are united in the same purpose. It was really cool, and I just felt a lot of love for them. I'm really so grateful for the Gospel in my life, and it has blessed me in every way.

Chasing Dolphins

Saturday was a perfect day. We went to a place about an hour and a half away to get on a boat and see some dolphins! Some had their doubts on whether we'd actually see any or many...but turns out there were tons. Maybe like 10 different ones around our boats? They were jumping a lot and occasionally throwing in some back flips. They got as close as a foot away from our boat...everyone was yelling and going crazy anytime we'd see one. Everyone but Brianna...haha...she gets seasick, so she took some motion sickness medicine and was passed out like a drunken sailor on the floor of the boat the entire time. Poor girl! That's the best picture I got of the dolphins. I gave up after a while...should've given up sooner...because we kept missing actually SEEING the dolphins. No more 3 x5's. Well, that's a lie.

After that excursion, we went to restaurant on the beach called Las Playas, Bellavista, where I ate a delicious sea bass. Absolutely perfect! I'm suprised I even ordered it after seeing a lot of dead fish-with half their heads chopped off-hanging out people's houses in the community the day before. But I think ours was pretty safe!

The water was warm and the waves were perfect for body surfing! Pretty much all 20 of us battled the waves for most of the day. Lots of swalling salt, but not to worry. The Pinguino man, the icecream man, was on the beach selling Magnum bars. I have heard about Magnum bars constantly this whole time, and Saturday I ate the first one. The most delicious ice cream bar I could ask for...what a wonderful way to end the day!

little Ecuadorian friends

Hogar de Cristo

I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER. Thanks to prayers and some antibiotics...I felt 100% better on Friday. Big turn around! I was really glad too because we went to Hogar de Cristo today to build a house. Two houses between 10 of us. Well 10 of us and then a couple workers who actually knew what they were doing! We met the families that the houses were for, and they were there for the day with us. One family made a huge lunch for one of the work crews. The community they live in is almost completely full of Hogar de Cristo houses. One family I know had been living with neighbors for 3 years, so they were pretty excited to have a house of their own. The group I was in had the main worker, his little apprentice son (Junior), and then 2 neighbors helping him. It was really great that there were people that wanted to help and be so involved, BUT I don't think they wanted our help too much. They knew how to do it, and how to do it fast...so we felt just kinda in the way. There was more watching than I hoped, which was kind of frustrating at first...I just hate feeling useless when I'm wanting to help. We did some hammering (which I am not so skilled at by the way....it took me like 10 minutes to get a nail into some bamboo! haha....no exaggeration. This is a picture of my first nail.) Our house got finished first, so then we were able to go over and help with the other house a little bit. The other house was mainly students, so we were actually helpful! Did a lot of playing with the little kids in the community...so cute. They are fascinated by cameras. I had my video camera on the tripod and the little kids would run in front of it and just yell or meow like a cat, etc...

We had another health fair at a stake center and taught CPR. When I was helping set up the CPR stuff, 4 primary boys came in and were pointing at the mannequins and talking saying "boca a boca!" (mouth to mouth) and then were practicing pounding on their chests. I'm pretty sure I had NO idea what CPR was when I was that little. This 7 year old, Jeremy, was really into it...totally serious about learning, and he actually remembered how to do it. The part where you have to ask if the person is conscious, he was like "Mama...Mama! Hola Mama?" hahah...so cute! (But also kind of sad! ) He was my favorite part of the day!

After that we got to experience what a Ecuador Singles' dance is like. SO FUN. Half of us went to a dance for a couple of the LDS stakes in Guayaquil with on of the church representatives, Gunther. He tried to teach us how to dance. Really we were all hopeless white girls with no hips...ghetto dancing. Once again, Big Willy needed to be there! We were all in our BYU polos and scrubs from the health fair (everyone else had dresses and ties on), so I think that people liked to laugh at us. I'm sure they needed some extra entertainment for the night. Really, it was one of the biggest highlights of the trip so far! Everyone just gets in lines and dances across from each other and the music NEVER STOPS. We were only there for a little bit, but we got a little taste of latin dancing for the night.

A Little Sick

Yesterday was a busy day for most of us. We left for the hospital at 7, and most people didn't get back until 9:45 at night. We went to the maternity hospital again, then there was CPR teaching after that, and then the temple. I missed the CPR teaching because I haven't been feeling so good the past couple days. I just came home and slept. I woke up with a fever yesterday and then kind of achy and stuff like that. I was feeling okay enough to go to the temple because I really wanted to, but I was really chilled through most of it. The temple workers there are really so adorable. One older couple is from Nova Scotia, and I met them last week when we went. The wife gave me a warm towel to put on my shoulders while I was waiting. It was the best thing that could've ever happened in that moment! She is really so cute with her Canadian accent speaking the most perfect spanglish.

At the maternity hospital we got to do some good labor support for a few women. There were 3 babies born in the first hour we were there! I was with one woman named Reina who was SO appreciative of just having a wet towel on her head. We got to bring her baby to her...but it was like an hour and a half after until she got to actually hold it. It takes a while. One lady was yelling at one the students not to leave her...it doesn't surprise me though since they don't have anyone else! P.S. That's Reina's baby I'm holding in that picture with the totally hot hairnet. Please please don't be jelous of how GOOD I look right there.

I am staying at the hotel today because I'm still feeling pretty sick. Good thing I'm with a bunch of nurses, right?

Chariots of Fire

Started off today with celebrating Nurse's Day at the Luis Vernaza hospital's health fair! We set up a booth with our CPR dummies and were teaching people how to do CPR on adults and children. It seemed like a lot of the health care professionals didn't have a lot of exposure to CPR...so that was kind of interesting...but they were pretty willing to learn!

This afternoon me and few girls went running down on the Malecon, which is by the river. Back in high school cross country, we had a stretch called "seal."..called this because you look like one because you're stretching your stomach to prevent side cramps. I warned the girls that I had to do it real quick. So I starting doing it by the entrance of the Malecon park/walkway and the guard there started to yell at me and told me to go somewhere else. Haha....I'm not sure why. But we just ran away. The rest of our run was nice and sweaty! (I got the "I sweat like a man" award today by the way. I'm guessing most of you know why. Especially Sarah.) During our run, Chariots of Fire started playing over the speakers in the park. Very perfect! I kind of wanted to start hurdling everything and everyone. First time I've probably ever heard that song anywhere besides the movie and when I played it on the piano like a decade ago. It's been so nice to go running the days that we can!

This picture at the fountain is of a few of us after eating at Fragola, our favorite ice cream place here. That's the 3rd time we've been there, and it's the same people working every time...we're practically family. While we were eating our ice cream, a man was crossing the street and flossing his teeth. I took a picture, and well he saw me take it, but he just laughed sorta. Made me think of Dad and how much he just LOVES to floss his teeth.