Hospitality

How do I overcome the desire to guard my territory and my time and let others take part in my life? How do I let the present moment take precedence over the planned future?Here, I do this more easily. My schedule changes in the three seconds it takes a neighbor to invite me in for lunch, or as soon as the herd of children see me and sprint to tackle me into a game of Cafe Chocolate. Here, I let myself be taken by life as I learn to trust spontaneity.

I give my time, though not my home. Like most houses here, our home is gated, though it´s unique in that it has a guard, and only Rostro staff are allowed in unannounced or unaccompanied. I am uncomfortable with the distance this system creates between us and our neighbors, but understand its necessity (or at least utility) for security and other reasons. Following the recommendation (not rule) of our directors, our community opted for a no-visitors policy, to be revisited regularly. Eso me cuesta. Again, I understand its purpose, but I struggle with the distance it creates. I want to share my space with people I care about, to give them the intimacy of my sanctuary.

Here, now, I can´t. So - how to be a hospitable guest? How to share my heart and home outside of the gate? Pictures, bananna bread, conversation, radical availability. That´s my best answer to date.

I am not Ecuadorian. As welcome as I feel with certain families, I don´t and can´t understand life in Arbolito. I will leave. I can leave. Poverty is the absence of power to change your life. (Who said this?) I have power. I have a college degree, money, two languages, white skin, and I vote for the president of the United States of America. I feel welcome, open, loved, loving, and learning, but I am not arboliteña and I want to respect the difference. Yes, I still learn across a gulf, and I learn more honestly.

Given the gulf, why do they invite me in? Because I´m new? Special? A good person? White? Rich? Able to give them things? Or because close quarters and sugarcane walls make barriers fluid, and everyone cooks more than their family will eat?

It´s easy to fall into the trap of cynicism and to believe that new friends here will eventually manipulate the gringa into repaying them with favors or money. But I don´t believe that. Some will try to exploit me, but this is true anywhere of any people. The world I want to create - the world Christ calls me to create - sows trust and generosity to reap love and strength of community. How can I construct this world if I don´t first believe in it and live it? I won´t request what I refuse to live.

¨I am blessed to be a witness.¨

Trust is risky. So is generosity. Eventually, I´m gonna get screwed. Someone will take advantage of my whatever goodness I manage to share. You will read those emotions too as the year (as life?) wears on, and they will be ugly. I will try, try, try to live joyfully despite disappointment and deception. Bear with me. Feel free to join in the experiment. Also to pray.

What a small price to pay for build love.

I trust you.

Today´s prayer intentions: for the cumpleañeros, Brigitte and Fernando; for us to find strength to love through difficulty, and that we resist the hardening of our hearts as we face the ugliness of this world. And also in thanksgiving for good parents, both mine and others´.

¿perdida?

"Not all who wander are lost."- J.R.R. Tolkien

I am definitely wandering. Maybe I am lost, but I don't think so. I am without direction that is for sure. I talked to Jenny for 5 minutes and spent the next half hour in tears.

Everyone else has a life, they have a an income, they have put Ecuador in it's big, important, painful compartment and they have moved on. They are grounded in other things. I am grounded in nothing. I am drifting. I am trusting, but drifting all the same. I knew this when I compared wrists with Alison and Mike, here in Boston. I am still wearing bracelets from Ecuador. I can't take them off. But Mike is wearing a big shiny watch and Alison changes jewelry everyday. They have class and work and friends. I have the next location and countless hours spent waiting for the malidito phone to ring. I am still mourning the loss of Ecuador because I have nothing to move forward to. I have no true home, I have no daily occupation, and I certainly don't do a damn thing that matters in this world...when only months ago the simplest act could mean the world to someone. I had to but show up at someones' house and I would have made an impact.

Yo los abandoné. I abandoned them. That is the only thing I can possibly feel. You are not supposed to leave people whom you love. And I left them. And I left them for nothing. And I am so afraid that now I am nothing without them.

Con gripe (GREE-pay)

Así ando, con gripe. I´m sick as a dog with enough junk leaving my nasal cavity to question what modern medicine teaches about the human body´s maximum volume capacity. I wonder if I´ve leaked any brainpower in the process. The last few days have left me bedridden and this is my first exciting foray into the world since Wednesday. Who knew buying bread and hitting up the Internet cafe could be such a thrill?

I have discovered the cause for my sickness, or rather, my Ecuadorian neighbors have discovered it for me. Cambio de clima, se dicen, y mucho polvo. Blame it on the change in temperature and the excessive dust. Whether we have the sniffles, a sore throat, upset stomach, or a broken arm, these two are always the culprit. It´s like going to the campus medical center and receiving their super-potent antibiotic pack for everything from the flu to carpal tunnel syndrome. Regardless of the cause, I am resting a receiving lots o´ love from concerned neighbors and communitymates. If I can´t have Mom, at least I have good friends.

My neighborhood is known as Arbolito, although there is no specific small tree that makes this name logical. It started as an invasion - a squatter settlement - about 15 years ago and has grown. The main road and one other are paved, but most are dirt and rocks. It´s divided losely into 4 sectors, numbered based on age and level of devleopment. I live in Sector 3, which hosts the Catholic church and a tech school built a few years ago which moonlights (afternoons) as our host for Semillas. Most houses are made of sugarcane, though some are cement and most blocks have one or two under construction. Arbolito settlers moved into a swamp, and the damp climate remains and gives us LOTS of mosquitos, so I avoid the outdoors during twilight hours. Most of our female neighbors work out of the house - owning a store, sewing, making shoes or some other type of artisanry - and male neighbors are mechanics, bus or taxi drivers, construction workers, or work sporadically in whatever job they can find. Many are unemployed, particularly because Arbolito offers very little in terms of employment, and a good chunk work in jobs that keep them away from the home Mon-Fri.

Te lo explico. Arbolito is a neighborhood of Duran, a large area across the river from Guayaquil. Most of the poor who work in Guayaquil live in Duran, which has developed more quickly in some sectors than others. Every way I can think of to explain these places references places I´ve lived before - Duran´s largest artery called Primavera 1 looks like the main drag in Callao in Peru, lined with stores covered by grates and stoplights that regulate very little. Arbolito is Lima´s Gambetta neghborhood - dusty, dirty, burning trash, small stores, lots of pedestrians and biciclists riding two or three on a bike that looks like it shouldn´t support one. Music, music, music, though this is true for almost every location I visit here. And kids! Everywhere! Guayaquil hosts plenty of street children, though I don´t see them often because there are fewer in Duran and my job keeps me on this side of the river. Oh man, the kids. Those big brown eyes. And they´re all so darn good at soccer. I feel uncoordinated and clumsy with them, but they continue to run to me for hugs and any sort of cariño. I guess soccer skills don´t define one´s worth as a person. Who knew?

Funny anecdote: Duran and Guayaquil are separated by a river, which flows in some of the strangest, most erratic currents I´ve ever seen. Consequently, the river (río in Spanish) is affectionately called the ría, making it feminine and thus matching the female characteristics of being fickle, indecisive, and impossible to understand. I know I´ll catch flack for posting this, but if you saw the way 72 year old Gabriel winked and knudged me with his elbow as he told this story, you´d throw it in too. Oh Gabriel - would that I were old and charming enough to be as excusably irreverent as he! Dimples and a good laugh - dangerously powerful.

Pardon my directionless writings - cabin fever leaves me a little loopy. Peace be with you, friends!

Today´s prayer intentions: for the volunteers at the Farm of the Child, who are taking a weekend retreat to renew their energy, that they find strength and patience for love; and for Raul, for whatever made him cry the other day.

Come In

Dear friends and family, past, present, and future,

¡Feliz dia!

I am in Ecuador. July 31, 2007 marked my first night and I´m dumbstruck when I see today´s date. 6 weeks? Really?

When I first arrived, a veteran volunteer told me that his days in Ecuador dragged on, but weeks and months flew by. Now I sit in the front office at work, scribbling notes in a small book filled with prayres and Spanish vocabulary (parsley is ¨perejil¨), waiting to head out for another interminable day.

I love these days, these long, sweaty days that send me home dripping, drained, and satisfied. Evenings smell like sunscreen diluted with salt water and children´s dirty hands until a cold shower, rice steam, and lime juice take over. I prefer neither clean nor dirty, and I sleep best when I´ve bathed in both.

Nights are cool and windy, though I´m told this will change when the rains come (November-April). The sun is intense. There is no font bold enough for this word.God is here, in people. Bueno,

God is everywhere in people, but I see Him here, now, sweating, laughing. Six other volunteers share my days and theirs over dinner, and five more live in another house nearby. Family.

My neighbors also. Señora Patricia and Co. above all. Nine people live in that open home. Be patient - I will give them to you as best I can in the coming weeks and months. Know that I am well loved here. And that I am blessed.

Monday-Friday take me to work. Two jobs, morning and afternoon. At 8:30a I start my day with Hogar de Cristo, working in their micro-credit program. This job will change dramatically in the next few weeks, so I´ll say more in time.

Afternoons call me to Semillas de Mostaza, an after-school program in my neighborhood that hosts 50-140 kids daily, depending on the time of year. It is my greatest source of joy and frustration. Children´s lies sting more than others, and their growth tastes rich and sweet. Again, I will say more.

I am learning to pray here. A slow process. Singing helps tremendously, as (strangely) do bumpy buses.

Brief, piddly, insufficient. Yes, I know, but it is something! Tell me what you want more of.

Your letters! Thank you, and for your prayers also.

Today´s intentions: Jefferson, that he stop getting in his own way and can learn to behave as well as he so desperately wants to.