After four days of feeling very under the weather, I have returned to the land of the living! I feel great and ready to meet the challenges of the center.....
GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS
TIAS
Yesterday, we led the children outside into the glorious Ecuadorean sunshine. The weather was perfect and felt much like a summer day at our beloved cabin in West Virginia except for the intensity of the sun. The children sat along a low concrete wall and we painted their feet with a brush (right foot amillo (yellow) left foot azul (blue). This is an activity that I've used in America with my preschoolers, but here in Calderon its only purpose was to provide a cooling sensation to hot feet and love /tickles. Made we long to be a child again!
I think it would take a long time to understand this culture and its many complexities. For example, there was a very sick little toddler who was brought to the center yesterday. We have 3 nurse practitioners on this team so we are well covered for medical help. They believe that this child has pneumonia and gently urged the tias to seek medical help. A note here....Ecuador has a two tier system both public and private. This child could receive public care free, but they must wake up very early in the morning and stand in line. The public hospital only takes about 20 new patients a day!!!!! The tias performed a ritual of rubbing this dangerously ill child with lemons in an effort to bring down her fever. Later in the afternoon, tia Paty pronounced that the child was better due to the lemon poultice! Hope so. If it works I'm going to try it on myself!
Funny episode....While leaning against an open window while sitting inside the center, a bird flew over and deposited his business all over my shoulders. The tia hastened to tell me that this is very good luck in Ecuador????
Last night all of the volunteers went to a fine traditional Ecuadorean restaurant in old town Quito. This was a lovely place and, for the first time this week, I actually had an appetite as I feasted on espanadaditas! At the end of the meal, the volunteers had arranged for the musicians to play happy birthday as they sang. The waiter brought a single candle in a wooden frame with a monk (who looked like a miniature Friar Tuck). What a birthday surprise that was!
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