Tentative plans

Three years in Ecuador as an Australian has led me to make tentative plans....I don't actually 100% believe that something will happen until it has started happening anymore!

For example, we had planned a farewell lunch out at Mollepamba (about an hour out of Loja) with the group that John has been teaching out there once a month on Sundays. We had the date planned already for months as the 1st November, we were bringing all the pizza ingredients to see how it turned out in Jorge's wood fired adobe oven. Off we start, up and over the pass, halfway down the hill to La Toma only to round a corner and see a big line up of cars. Hmmm.
John gets out to investigate, and after asking numerous people, finds out that although it was only 9am, the 9.30am road closure had already started and the police were not going to let anyone else through, unless it was a medical emergency. What's more, the road wasn't going to be re-opened until 6pm that evening. The reason? The Virgin of Cisne was making her pilgrammage back from Loja to El Cisne that very day, knowledge new to us, but obvious to some of our other local friends when we mentioned our frustration the next day. I was sort of glad to see we weren't the only ones in the dark as we observed irate drivers yelling at the police about why they hadn't shut the road in Loja itself rather 40 minutes down the road!

The next complication was letting our friends in Mollepamba know that there was no way we could make our planned lunch. There is one place in their house where they can get reception for their mobile phone to receive messages, so we sent a message, hoping that they would check their mobile phone. The phone call we got from another girl who was in a different spot with some mobile phone coverage a few hours later asking where we were and that everyone was waiting for us for lunch made it clear our message hadn't gotten through...

So no farewell lunch in Mollepamba and a lot of pizza dough to get through with an alternative bunch of people was the end result of that tentative plan!

Another example, John had arranged a trip out to Zamora, about an hour out of Loja (opposite direction to Mollepamba) on a particular Tuesday. He leaves the house at a reasonable hour, drives over to pick up Morgan (about 10 blocks) and can't get any further as this was the day of a taxi and bus driver strike in an effort to see fares increased. The whole of Loja was gridlocked with taxis and buses blocking most intersections making it impossible to get through. John didn't make it any further than Morgan's place and had to ring up and cancel the meeting in Zamora.

I had gotten Evie ready for school like normal, only to show up and see that there was no school due to the strike, which most everybody else seemed to know but me. There is just a certain level of ignorance that seems to come as a result of being a foreigner in another culture.

And so, I continue to make plans, but with a much higher expectation that they might never come to pass, and only as it happens do I believe it!