Sunday in Quito

This morning was another 3-mountain day in Quito. Here’s the view of Cotopaxi Mountain from our roof, where we were hanging laundry. It seems we’ll have to do laundry often because of how few uniform outfits Caleb has for school. It’s a good thing it’s the dry season and almost any day is good for hanging out clothes.

Sundays are a bit different here. I miss going to Quaker Meeting. My father-in-law Gene already had the idea of starting a Quaker Worship Group here, so we’ve been exploring that together. The first person we asked about how to get out the word was a young woman who works at the U.S. Embassy. Her reply surprised us: It turns out she grew up in a Quaker family in Indiana. She herself didn’t seem too interested in worshipping with us, but will help us publicize the place and date, once we figure that out ourselves.

We’ve been going to Helen and Gene’s church instead of Quaker Meeting. It’s the English congregation of a Lutheran church that also has a Spanish congregation and a German congregation. The English congregation draws people from many different religious backgrounds, although most are what they call “mainline” Protestants. I get very confused with the texts, hymns, stand-ups, and sit-downs. One great thing about going to church is seeing people Jens has known forever and whom I probably met on my first trip to Ecuador 24 years ago (wow!).

This afternoon, Natalie has been doing her usual Goddard work. During her 8-day residency at the college in late August, she made a plan with her advisor for this semester, which has a focus on midwifery and farming and social change. She has a blog at http://nat-travels.blogspot.com/, but I see she hasn't yet talked about her studies. That doesn't mean she hasn’t been busy – she’s been working this afternoon on a bibliography and a paper. Gene, her grandfather, is all excited about taking her on field trips and discussing agriculture and social change with her.

Caleb is doing homework this afternoon and it’s not easy. For example, he has to write out in Spanish the number 23,363.4451, which they write as 23.363,4451. He had only barely learned his numbers in Spanish up to 1,000 before Math class on Friday, so he has 3 times as much work as his classmates to do the homework. I'm impressed, though, at how he keeps up his interest and moves ahead. He had a lot of new vocabulary in his notes from History class, some of it being new words for him in English as well, such as rhetoric, discourse, Machiavelli, and Pavlov. Doesn’t that combination of words make you wonder what the theme of the History lecture was? Jens is trying to help Caleb figure that out.

Here’s a picture of Jens and me at the supermarket loading our groceries into orange reusable grocery bags (that’s a big, yummy, ripe papaya I'm touching). We already have accumulated well over 50 plastic bags from shopping, and I’m trying not to accumulate any more. It’s been feeling really weird to put everything into the trash can and not recycle anything, but I keep reminding myself that the recycling must be happening – surely someone is going through our garbage somewhere and taking out anything reusable. That’s the way it is in the developing world.

-Spee