Hello from Ecuador!

This is my attempt to keep my word and try to stay in touch more
regularly. Perhaps then I can keep my notes a little shorter and more
manageable... thanks to all who actually made it through my last
message! Very impressive.

So here is some of the news from here in Duran, Ecuador:

I have been back for a week from my vacation in Baños in the Andes
mountains - which was incredibly beautiful - and I am so very happy to
be settling back into a routine and to be able to spend time with my
community and with our Ecuadorian neighbors. As usual, there have been
emotional highs and emotional lows, days where I am smiling all day
and days where i might start crying at the slightest things, but I'm
realizing that is life here in Ecuador - the emotional swings are
incredible and there is very little middle ground. Sometimes I feel
like I might explode but all in all i am so thankful that I am feeling
here - really and truly feeling things and experiencing things and
living things with my whole heart.

And I am growing - I think my heart is stretching and my faith is
growing and I am learning to open myself and empty myself a little
more every day.

To talk more concretely, an interesting fact, I suppose, is that we
are experiencing an energy crisis here in Ecuador right now. We are
coming up on the rainy season, which begins for real in January, and
usually during the transition from rainy season to dry season it will
begin to rain, little by little, as January approaches. This year,
unlike most years, there has been no rain as of yet (it has not rained
here in Guayaquil a single time since I arrived here in August), and
they are not forecasting rain for a while. This means that the rivers
are very very low, and although I don't completely understand it all,
much of the country's energy comes from hydroelectric power. Anyways
with this power shortage they are rationing energy by shutting off
power to certain parts of the city at specific times every day. For us
in Duran, the power goes off from about 7 in the morning to 10 every
day and then again at night from 6 to 8. We are well situated to deal
with the lack of energy because we generally still have water due to
the way our plumbing is set up (another thing I dont fully understand)
and we have a gas stove, so especially in the morning, lots of times I
don't even realize that we don't have power. At night though it is a
little more tricky, as it gets dark every night at 6. It's a little
dangerous to be wandering around at night without light - the other
night I tripped over the dog and almost fell on my face - and we are
also often cooking eating etc in the dark. It was an adventure at
first and a little annoying now but we are becoming very adept at
living with a combination of headlamps, flashlights, and candlelight.
The energy shortage is forecasted to continue for the next 2 months so
I'm sure by the end then we will be experts at surviving sin luz.

In other news, I love teaching more every day. A lot of it I think has
to do with finally feeling like I know what I am doing, at least a
little bit, and also getting to know my students a little better and
earning their trust. As I type this I just got out of an hour and 20
minute class with my high school seniors. We just started discussing
the idea of 'us' versus 'them' in our modes of relating with people,
and today we discussed racial stereotypes within the United States and
here in Ecuador. We started out discussing the legacy of segregation
in the US and I explained to them 'Brown versus Board of Education,'
and from there we were able to have a really great discussion on
racism, including whether or not we might all be 'inherently racist,'
simply because of our background and our fear of the unknown, the
'them.' Sometimes I feel like trying to get my class to talk can be
like pulling teeth and sometimes it is so hard for me to get them to
think critically but I think the discussion today really resonated
with them, and I think we all walked out of class with a lot of things
to think about. And it all seems like such a blessing to me, to be
able to discuss issues like this with students in a culture different
than my own, in a culture where i am actually the 'them,' and to
really feel that genuine interest and the understanding, to know that
we are all growing and learning together. What an amazing blessing.

i think I'm going to leave it at that today - - hopefully if I stay up
to date with these notes I will be able to continue sending a few
paragraphs at a time instead of entire chapters :)

Once again thank you for all of your support and your prayers and your
love. Thinking of you all as the holidays approach. I wish i could be
there to celebrate with you but i will be holding you in my heart.