Saturday, February 25, 2012

CARNAVAL!

Last week was CARNAVAL! In Ecuador, the people celebrate the four days leading up to Lent/ Ash Wednesday. Lots of families head to the beach to play or to the mountains to visit relatives. Monday and Tuesday were days off work. Tons of the stores on our street were closed. What do people do on these party days? Have water fights and attack each other with paint! Ah! In Monte Sinaí, it became a common sight to see kids and adults walking down the street soaked from head to toe or with different color paint staining their faces and clothes. Kids staked out the sidewalks with water guns or water balloons to throw at cars with open windows. People in the back of pick-up trucks drove around dumping buckets of water on innocent passers-by. Lots of little blow up pools were inflated and filled with kiddos and parents. The public pool was PACKED and patroled by plenty of police. The more hardcore people played with the dirty puddle water or with eggs or mud. (I am NOT hardcore, mind you). But I did play! We had 11 high school boys in town from St. John´s Prep, so we joined in on a huge battle and lunch with youth group after Mass on Sunday. We all ended up looking like zombies, our faces caked with green and black paint. What a riot! And on Tuesday, the most loco day of all, we played in the street with Mónica´s family and some other neighborhood kids, soaking each other with little buckets of water and rainbow color paint. Maybe not the best way to conserve water, but it was wonderful to participate in such a fun cultural experience! Hopefully I´ll be able to put some pictures up soon! :) Happy Lent to you all!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The rainy season...It's here.

Welcome to the rainy season in Ecuador. It's officially here, and it's not going anywhere anytime fast. What does this mean for Monte Sinaí? It rains most days, sometimes all day or all night. The streets that were once dusty (and unpaved) have now turned to mud or swamps. Some areas are impassable without boots (or the kind of courage it takes to stick your foot in murky, stagnant water that´s sat for days and is contaminated with who knows what). There are puddles and rain-made ponds/lakes/rivers speckling every street where mosquitoes breed and parasites hang out (or whatever it is that parasites do). Dengue fever has been on the rise, along with plenty of other afflictions brought on by the rain-caused conditions. Neighbors have worked together to build little bridges out of scrap wood or rocks, dig canals, or purchase giant dump truck loads of rocks and dirt to fill the low areas and allow people to pass or cars to drive through. Just last week, both ends of our street were so bad that water trucks couldn´t enter and our neighbors had no access to water. Houses that are not made of cement or up on stilts are in constant danger of flooding. (Monte Sinaí was recently featured on the news for the severity of this problem right now.) And the electricity...it´s been going out almost every day, sometimes multiple times and sometimes lasting for hours or even a full day. I won´t mention any specifics about the new bugs and creatures that have emerged (love you, Mom). But in short, the rainy season makes the difficult lives of our neighbors even more difficult. It is inspiring to see their perseverence.

A small success story:
Last month, two women came knocking at our gate, asking for the Hogar de Cristo volunteers that live there. (Hogar de Cristo is a huge non-profit that addresses needs like housing, education, community building, health, and ministry in poverty-stricken areas) They sought help in getting a house. Both sisters, single mothers of small children, had been living with a generous neighbor (many people living in a small cane home)after their house had become unlivable. The canal had flooded, turning the floor of their already make-shift shelter made of sheets and plastic into a thick mud-pit. Being single moms, they didn´t have the money to buy a new house (and they can´t work because there´s nobody to watch the kids). Additionaly, one of the women was attacked by her former husband with a machete before he left them. Defending herself, two fingers were cut off. Her hand became infected, and now her whole arm is unusable. To make matters worse, the kids were sick and without medical access. You may be thinking, "This is a SUCCESS story??" Just wait. So hearing all of this, my community mates Belén and Katty went to take pictures of these women´s former home, brought them to the right office at Hogar, and helped get two houses donated. Each of the sisters now has a cane house on stilts, safe from flooding. And the health office has been offering the family support. That is the success part.