Re-entry...

It has now been 3 weeks since we left Quito and I sit here from our sunroom in Kingsford with the seabreeze coming in, thinking that it all feels quite surreal.

Our week in Nashville with my brother and his family was great, and a good stepping stone between 2 worlds - still driving on the right hand side but mostly english spoken around us. We celebrated Thanksgiving, raked up lots of autumn leaves which the kids then jumped in and promptly disappeared, and even saw a puppet show in downtown Nashville library.

We arrived in Sydney on the 5th Dec and spent the next week helping with all my sister's wedding preparations for the following Saturday, although we did sneak in a quick 2 trips to the beach! Now we are getting our head around living here for the next 8 months. Our church family has been so fantastic at helping us get settled, to the point that we were able to sleep in the house they had organised the first night we arrived, and had breakfast waiting for us in the cupboard for the following morning! So thank you Lord for the way you care for us in such a myriad of ways and thank you RPC.

Some things that have struck us as we get out and about...

Less high heels; lots more leg showing with guys in shorts and girls in dresses and skirts (naturally as we are in the heat of summer but after seeing people mostly in jeans for 3 years it does stand out); lots more green spaces and trees visible within the city; tiled roofs and finished buildings; smooth roads; some things cheaper such as fast and reliable internet, some things more expensive like fruit and veg; wondering how to greet and farewell people appropriately (do I wave aimlessly in the air, merely say goodbye, shake hands or kiss on the cheek???); telemarketers ringing up...and so it goes on.

Feeling a little whelmed but enjoying being here too. Let's see how the next few months pan out, by God's grace we will have some rest, some re-energising, re-connecting and fun, plus all the other responsibilities fitted in too!

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!

Celebrating Evie's birthday

Evie turned 4 on October 29, so we brought a cake along to her pre-school and got the kids to jump around like kangaroos! We had a little party the next day at home and enjoyed seeing the kids all play together. It was a good Australian-Ecuadorian mix with fairy bread and a pinata!