Vying to be heard: cattle, chickens, trucks, and a sermon

In church this Sunday, the pastor had to keep raising the volume of his preaching. Sunday here is market day. Buses poured into town, using their air brakes to slow their way into town. Trucks lumber on the main street beside the church, loaded with green-plantain bananas, oranges, and potatoes. Cattle and sheep were herded past. Stray dogs, chickens, and families wandered by, some of each of which popped into the church for a bit of a visit mid-sermon. One big german-shepherd-ish dog, came and slept just near our feet for the second half of the sermon. In honour of the Catholic month of Corpus Cristi, firecrackers boomed at random, sometimes in clusters that lasted for seconds strung together. And all of the while, the pastor tried to raise his voice above the din, so we could hear the father's day sermon. Maybe that's why this week's morning sermon was only about a half-hour long. One of our two local OMS churches: Buen Pastor If you get there 'on time' the church is pretty empty. Most people have arrived by mid-sermon (an hour later). Firecrackers have been going off night and day, all month. This OMS church is attached to the compound where we live in Saraguro. This church is called Amada De Dios.

Maggots, and rats, oh my!

Earlier this week, when I went to clean the bathroom. I swept behind the toilet and found new rat poo - sad. No wonder the cat was making so much noise the night before. He even knocked over a stool in the kitchen. I wonder if he was involved in a big rat chase? He is a big cat; walks like a well-built lion, likes to attack everything he sees, and is a really sappy in-want-of-love kind-of cat. After sweeping, I picked up a soggy-haired barbie that had been played with in the shower. Its hair was crawling with maggots! Aaaaaack! Iiiiiiiick! Yuck! They nearly touched me! So Don and I super cleaned and disinfected the bathroom floor to ceiling. The morning after we thoroughly cleaned the bathroom, I woke up to new maggots squirming on the bathroom floor. More gag-filled cleaning . . . oooooh what I would have given for a wet/dry shop vac! We weren't sure how the sticky critters were getting in; we checked all over the bathroom floor, and then the ceiling. THEN Don checked the space between the ceiling and the upstairs floor . . . there were two dead rats decaying up in that narrow dark space; maggots were breeding up there, then dropping through the seams of the bathroom ceiling. Eeeeeeeewwwwwwwww. Don has cleaned up the dead rats. Poor Don . . . ick, ick, ick!!!! So now we aren't expecting to encounter any new maggots. Good thing we all have slippers!

The truck got stuck . . . in third gear

We just had a hairy drive down the Andes to Pallatanga, from Riobamba. We went to Riobamba to meet with the Chimborazo soccer federation's head people. There is some concern that Ethan won't be able to play in the provincial qualifiers in June, because he is not a national, so the coach and our clan drove to Riobamba for a meeting about it. We still have to follow up with the Minister of Interior, in Guayaquil. Ethan should feel very complimented, as his coach really wants him to be able to play, and he said many many great things about Ethan. WOW!

At any rate, on the drive back, it turned dark, and there was the usual bad amount of dense fog, but then the clutch went. Don managed to jam the shifter into third at the top of the steepest pass, but we still had another 50 klms of winding mountain roads to go back to camp. Everytime we came up upon a slower moving vehicle, the truck chugged-chugged-chuuged in third, but it didn't stall, as Don fought with it to wait for the right moment, then try to pass when able (still in third gear).

The rain really let loose just as we got into the house. We couldn't believe that Don even managed to negotiate the turn into the camp driveway! God was so amazing, as Don had to dodge small landslides, and pass other vehicles, all along the winding road. Oh my! Don knew if he slowed too much, we'd stall, and there are no shoulders on those roads. We even made it up steep hills that the truck can't usually do in third gear.

Don still has to have a good look at the transmission in the daylight; evidently this has happened to the good ol' Toyota camp truck before. We can hardly believe we made it all that way, God is amazing. We prayed lots!!!!!! And that is really what God has been teaching us in our recent time at camp, to rely on Him, to commit everything to prayer, fervent needy prayer. Being needy about things, etc, is not something that Don and I are used to feeling. We are learning lots and praying lots through these challenges.

We're looking forward to bussing into the town the next time we go. =)

Electrical codes in Ecuador

Don has been working hard on wiring the new house. The electrical conduit is concreted into the walls, floor, and ceilings. Over the last three years, as volunteer teams and local workers have come onto the site, they have all added their expertise to the house, but there was no overall plan drawn out on paper for the house, and non of the conduit is mapped. Good thing Don is a man of un-ending patience and farm-like fix-anything skills . . .

Using the bathroom can be scary . . .

We've gotten used to lots of things being done differently in Central and South America, but lots of things still surprise us regularly.

Bathroom visits can lead to a lot of culture shock, especially when there's no door no the bathroom, no soap to wash up, or no toilet paper (normal), or no seat on the toilet. And there is NEVER hot water for the sink.

However, once and awhile, a visit to the bathroom is extra shocking! Last week, when reaching for the light-switch, this bug surprised me!

Then this grasshopper deterred Katelyn from using the washroom on our drive back to camp this past week.

Oh my!!!!!