Changes

7 months in Ecuador. Almost a year spent in a foreign country. The first five months of my life as a Peace Corp volunteer were spent in constant transition, moving first from the (relatively) flat and english speaking state of Nebraska to the mountainous and spanish speaking country of Ecuador, then from hostals to houses and back to hostals again; saying goodbye to my warm winter fleeces only to unpack them a month later, moldy and smelling of my concrete room in the coast. Though I can´t describe my life now as normal (though in reality, there is no such thing as a normal life), the pace has slowed, and routines are developing. I can take time to celebrate and appreciate the small changes, which is something I had not quite mastered when living stateside. So, I am unofficially dedicating today, September 27,to the small things of life.

ST #1: My kitchen is finally painted! After three months of dirty white and moldy green walls, I came home after a weekend away to find my kitchen had been transformed into what appeared to be the inside of a peach. It´s quite cheering to eat breakfast in every morning, especially with the slug trails gone (albeit temporarily).




ST #2: I have a garden. Though I did enjoy pottering about in the yard and flower gardens in Nebraska, my passion never did equal that of my mother, who produces colorful and abundant gardens every spring. My landlady loaned me a strip of dirt to experiment with, and after she saw how the seeds I planted actually grew and have the promise of flowers, she ceded all of her yard to my garden whims. Now some of my favorite parts of the day are spent in the garden, weeding and watering and waging war with the slugs. It´s very therapuetic.




ST #3: My roof doesn´t leak anymore. Which is important, since I live in a region where the rainy season lasts nine months of the year, and even in the ¨dry¨ season it rains about twice a week. I do feel I should point out that during the process of replacing the roof, specifically when the old roof had been demolished and the new roof was not yet up, it poured buckets, which unfortunately found its way to my bed.

ST #4: Her name is Samina (after the famous Ecuadorian painter Guayasamin), she´s ten months old, likes to give high fives, and won´t sleep past 6 am. I originally wanted to call her Quetzal, but none of my Ecuadorian neighbors can pronounce that, so Samina it is. She´s small, but that doesn´t mean she represents a small change in my life. In fact it´s quite the opposite.