the JUNGLE

I have to start off by explaining how the end of the cross-country bus trip out here to Santa Clara went...

After blogging, Jenna joined me in a deep sleep (to be clear, by “deep” I mean the most continuous amount of actual sleeping you can get on a bus that's speeding through the jungle, while also making sure that your backpack doesn't get snatched and that you don't fall out of your seat). We woke up, at around 3:30am in a town south of Santa Clara called Puyo, to where we bought our tickets, assuming that was the end of the line for that bus. Actually, the bus we were on was heading through Santa Clara on its trek north, BUT they had sold our unclaimed seats at the Puyo station. The next bus was not rolling through until 7am, and instead of waiting for 3 hours at the vacant station, we thought it would be better to stand. So their we were, standing in the aisle, towering over all of the intelligent Ecuadorians who had paid for their entire over-night trip. Of course, it was a very winding road through the jungle and we had to block everyone's overhead bags from falling on top of us, and, if you're still following the story, it was only about 4am, so naturally they turned the lights off and we were in the pitch black. Santa Clara is a town of only 3,000, and without a terminal, the bus driver dumped us at a little bench on the side of the road at around 5, and drove away. Did

this town for sure have a hostel? Internet? How could we contact the people we were supposed to meet? We couldn't help but crack up over the entire situation. Only us. We waited on the bench until the sun came up to meander through the little rainforest town looking for a place to stay. We found a $15 hostel and immediately passed out. We decided we'd try to figure out a plan after a little much-needed sleep...Yep, that's how we travel. Gracefully.


What we woke up to though, was one of the most gorgeous places either of us has ever been to: a little town nestled in the magnificent Amazon rainforest. We had previously contacted a couple named Isaac and Kirstie who are volunteering with the Peace Corps and were assigned to Santa Clara for their two years. Luckily our hostel owners had wifi and we were able to Skype-call Isaac. (Our back-up plan was to go knocking on doors asking people where the gringos lived, so I'm glad Skype worked out.) We met up with Isaac on his way to his English class with the “bomberos” (firefighters), and he invited us to come along. We obviously said yes, and herein started an amazing week of adventures with Isaac and Kirstie, and the people of Santa Clara. Isaac and Kirstie have been working with the bomberos and a few of the schools in town doing different projects, activities, and various classes. They were very accommodating in letting us come along to help out with their endeavors all week. Isaac brought us to English class with the bomberos, and asked Jenna and I to prepare a dialogue so they could hear a little Midwestern English. (We've heard many times now that Jenna's accent is stronger than mine, and so it provided a little bit of an extra challenge for the beginners.) We also went to the first-aid session and I acted out the part of a victim of a machete accident and was bandaged up by the training firefighter.

With Kirstie, we went along to English club, where we met an amazing group of 6-11 yr olds. We played games to practice the parts of the body, clothing, numbers, and colors. In one game, Kirstie had teams face-off to be the first to name in English what she drew on the whiteboard. The kids loved when Jenna and I faced off, in Spanish of course, and were giving us quick little lessons on all the body parts in Spanish. The second time we went to the club, the kids has a “sorpresa” (surprise) for Jenna and I. They had heard it was my birthday a few weeks back, and prepared a whole surprise party for us. They brought cake, pop, candy, and gave us bracelets and earrings. They also wrapped up a little Spanish-English fairy agenda book for me. Para (To): Rene, De (From): Domenica y su hermana (sister) Melany. Thee sweetest thing that has ever happened to me. They had known us for what, two hours? It was so heartwarming.


We also went to another school to see about weeding the garden Kirstie had started with them. It is a bilingual Spanish-Kichua school, Kichua being the language of the indigenous people form the area. Instead of gardening though, we spent half the day with a class of 6^th and 7^th graders (each teacher has 2 grades due to the lack of funding). They wanted to know our names, where we were from, what the weather was like there, and all kinds of other questions. Then they wanted us to play a game from the states with them. Heads-up 7-up. They had never played before. They dug it. After that, they insisted we sing a song, in the holiday spirit, we sang “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”- in perfect harmony ;). Jenna and I went back to the classroom the next day and brought along paper to make Chinese Fortune Tellers. These they had seen before, and it wasn't so exciting, but we threw in some English words to spice it up. We ended our time with more Heads-up 7-up, and then had to escape when they started ripping out Jenna's hair to keep... If you're blonde and in Ecuador, don't bend down around teenage girls.


Outside our time in the schools, we tried to soak up as much of the nature as we could. One day, the bomberos had a plan to hike to a waterfall in the jungle. As usual, all 4 of us gringos had no idea what to expect. We just put on sunscreen and trail pants and hopped in the police truck. We drove about 30 mins out of town, along winding roads through smaller and smaller villages until we were in the thick of the jungle. The police dropped us off (one decided to join us on our expedition, handgun and all), and the “comandante” (fire chief) immediately broke ahead, swinging his machete to make a path through the trees.

We were literally running at various times to keep up with him during the hour and a half trek in, splashing through rivers and mud puddles and crashing through spider and ant-infested trees. We started noticing that he didn't seem too sure of where this waterfall actually was, and I heard Jimena (also in the bombero English class) asking Isaac how to say “perdida” in English, which is Spanish for LOST. The comandante gave in and decided we should head back out the way we came. The policemen were going to pick us up at 5pm sharp, and we didn't want to risk not being there; no one had a cell signal. We trekked back out and found another river. Apparently this was the one we wanted to originally follow upstream. Weary from rainforest sprints, we were all hesitant to chase after another mythical “waterfall”. We decided to take the chance, though, and, as we were saying for the rest of the day: “Vale la pena”. It was worth it. We finally reached a huge waterfall jutting out from the cliff side into a large pool below. It was breath-taking. We all stripped down and swam under the ice cold, pounding falls. And even after a swim, we made it back to the drop point just in time for the police truck to be pulling up.


Other highlights of the week:

• We cooked the bomberos a huge ceviche dinner (the first time making it on our own) and it turned out great!
  
• We hung out with wild monkeys on the beach and played soccer in a town called Misahualli.
  
• The bomberos fed us some of the typical food of the region: a drink called wayuza, and fish grilled in a leaf called Maeto. ( It was weird to eat it while the poor guy just stared back at you...)
  
• Jimena and her family let us crash at their place one night to save money and we met their pet Agouti (look it up, the things are giant rodents).
  
• On night we were eating chicken-on-a-stick on the curb with our favorite stray dog and were picked up by Jimena and her friend, Anita, and invited over for tea and snacks. We all spent the whole night talking about Ecuadorian life versus that in the states.
  
• Getting schooled by a bunch of kids in a game of soccer.

The only lowlights of the week were: A. That we got destroyed by biting gnats and mosquitoes and are now experiencing something similar to one of the ten plagues of Egypt, and B. That we were hit on by a creepy bus driver and his assistant without a choice but to take the blow until we got to our destination. (I mean the guy was literally trying to search for me on Facebook while weaving the bus through cars and motorcycles along curving roads... No gracias.) Oh and C. The fact that after a few days worth of clothes that had braved jungle humidity our room REEKED. It didn't help that the shower only had ice cold water as well, so showers were few and far between. For those of you who predicted whether or not would reach a whole new level of hippie, barely showering or shaving? ...yea.


Other than that though, and the fact that our legs look like land-mines, our time in Santa Clara was completely amazing. And the people? The most generous and heartwarming bunch I've ever met. It is crazy to me that even though we're the ones who are supposed to be helping, the people of Ecuador never fail to help us! Everyone we met in that town offered to take us on adventures, feed us meals, and put us up for the night. People we had met only minutes before would ask if we could stay longer. Just one more week, por favor! That little jungle town has the most poverty we've seen so far, and yet the people opened up their entire lives to two white girls who showed up out of the blue. I cannot fully explain how humbling it is to experience a generosity like that. I mean, kids that share a tiny shack with their entire extended family threw together a surprise birthday party for girls they had met for a few hours... It makes me think, what kind of life am I living that in all my blessings I would ever even hesitate to give anything to anybody, while these people have so little and give so much? I pray that the humility I am feeling from such love and generosity has the power to influence my heart forever. I don't think either of us were expecting to be so deeply moved by our short time in that town, but we left feeling so blessed by the opportunity to fall in love with the people and their culture. I hope God can keep our hearts and minds wide open, and that He can show us how we can give back to His people who have been so amazing to us along this journey.

As for now, we just got back to the Latacunga orphanage for the week. Hopefully we will have time to recoop after a long trek all over the country, as well as spend a bunch of time with these kids here that we've been missing!


And sorry for such a long blog, it had to happen.


Surviving on bananas,
Renae