So I´ve heard we are already in the second week of June!!!
I really can’t believe it and feel as though time is FLYING just as fast as all of the awesome airplanes that I get to see take off from Guayaquil. (For all those back home who don’t know this.... I have a lil hobby here in Ecuador.... every time I go from my home in Duran to the city Guayaquil I keep my eyes peeled for the next plane taking off from the airport.... I LOVE it!)
Anyways....
Like I´ve said before, please forgive me for my lack of communication. I get a bit overwhelmed when I think about how to share all of these amazing blessings that I encounter everyday here.
I will start with talking about:

My Last Retreat Group....Scranton University
So, today I dropped my last retreat group off at the airport. Despite being super tired from the lil more than a week of action we shared, when I got home from the airport I just couldn’t sleep. I had a great time with my Scranton group and our experience was filled with reminders of what a blessing this year has been and that it is coming to a close. Our time together and nightly reflections have left me with many beautiful things to think about and continue to reflect on. This week we had some great visits in the homes of neighbors sharing laughter and even tears. Many neighbors weren’t home for the group to visit so we visited a few people a second time and found our time shared to be very fruitful. I loved hearing my group talk about how great it was to get to go back and truly feel at home and comfortable as they talked with their new friends. We played memory with Victor and Jon at Pastoras while I worked on making my purse. (Yes, I am making a purse!!!!! Crochet??? I never thought there was any hope for me to learn such a thing, but Pastora is full of patience, so I have learned and actually LOVE doing it). We also had a great time talking with Soraya, about her experience of supporting her husband Wellington through his struggles with Hanson’s Disease. Hearing her explain how she wasn’t scared at all and saw this sickness as any other sickness and the way she reassured Wellington of her love for him during his difficulties helped me to better understand the love Wellington has for Soraya today. Later in the week I brought my group back over to their house to do a Zumba dance workout with Soraya. We all had a lot of fun. The week ended on a great note too. Our last afternoon together we witnessed Ecuador winning Argentina 2-0 in a qualifying game for the world cup. It was super Exciting!!!
Ok.... so I know that was a jumble of randomness but I guess I just hope that it helps to explain what a great experience I had with my last retreat group - Scranton. Thanks guys!!!

Yay for Vitamins!!!
Thanks to generous donations of people in the US we have been able to give vitamins out at our after school programs. We have been giving out vitamins for a bit over two months now and it has been super exciting for all of us. The kids LOVE getting vitamins and many of our kids at Valdivia have found a favorite flavor :) I remember mine were red and purple when I was lil!
Some of the vitamins are even extra special in that they come in the form of gummies. We give these out on the special days. So Thanks to everyone who so generously donated vitamins! It has been greatly appreciated!

Morning Walks and Talks
So for about three weeks now I have been getting up extra early and going on morning walks with Soraya. Soraya is one of my friends and neighbors who lives across the street and has three kids Kevin, Keiko and Natalia. Her husband Wellington is a guard at our house and is also a good friend of mine. (Wellington taught me how to make hammocks....don’t know if I mentioned that before) Soraya and I have been talking for quite some time about going out and walking for some exercise and I must say that it is exciting to finally have followed through with our plans! We try to make sure we go out at least 3 days a week but love it when we can get in more. I wake up at 6 and we head out at 615 and walk for about 1 hour. Then I come home and get ready for a day at work. This week with my retreat group being here I didn’t have to run off to catch a bus to go to work so I had more down time. I really enjoyed this because I made yummy fruit and milk shakes post walk. With all of the fun fruits and veggies here I love doing this....but it takes time so most mornings I don’t have time and just get a piece of bread from the bread store before I catch the bus.
So yay for walking!!!! And talking!

March update

Thank goodness it is still March so that I can say that I have been at least leaving a monthly update! I have been finding it to be so hard to find the time to get to the cyber so please forgive me for my lack of communication.
March has been a great month.
It started off great with:

A visit from my Mom, Aunt MaryBeth and fiance Dan
March 5th-14 I was overjoyed to have the opportunity to share my experience here in Duran with some of my family. While they were here I had an great time introducing them to my amazing neighbors, co workers, and students from Valdivia. They were able to witness the incredible hospitality and generosity of the people of Duran through tummies that were filled to the max for eight days. They were able to try a variety of traditional foods prepared by neighbors and my mom also was able to learn how to prepare a few, which was a lot of fun! (Ask my mom to make you something!!!) While my mom tried the foods prepared by our friends here in Duran, they were able to try here amazing Special-K bars which I was SUPER EXCITED to be able to eat while she was here. Everybody here LOVED them!!! (No surprise).
They were especially lucky because they were here for a very special after school program event:

After School Program OLIMPICS 2009!!!!!!!
Wooooohoooooo!!!!! Go Valdivia!!!
So on my family´s last day here in Duran, they were able to witness the fruit of a good month of hard work. In the first week of February we announced to our kids in the asp programs that we would be working extra hard to prepare for the Olimpiadas in March. Our kids worked hard on getting in line in order of height and age (the first race at the olimpics). THey also worked hard on practicing their math, Ecuadorian geography, memory, language, skits and relays.
The week before we elected 20 kids that had behaved well and hadnt missed many days and thus formed TEAM VALDIVIA.
Our kids did great the day of the olimpics and it was a big help to have my mom, MB, and Dan there to help out. The kids also loved having more people there to cheer them on. We started the event off with a nice parade around the soccer court and then the kids split off according to the events they were participating in.... it reminded me SOO much of Play Day back in grade school. Now I have a whole new form of appreciation for all of the hard work those teachers must have done to have Play Day run so smoothly!
The day went great and the kids had a lot of fun, coming in second place.
We were SOOO proud of our kids!
The following Monday we celebrated with all of the kids from Valdivia sharing a day of soccer, a nice popsicle break, and ¨special¨bread to go with the usual banana.


Alrighty
So I am cutting this short.... there is much more that happened in March, and more to say, but I think it is better that I wrote something than nothing at all.
I am now off to Omar and Elizabeths house where Omar´s mom is hosting a bingo to raise money for the church. Wish me luck!!! :)
May God bless you all back home and please keep the people of Duran in your prayers.... it is so greatly appreciated!!

Saludos
Melissa

Feb Update

Hello to everyone back home!
I appologize that it has been such a long time since I last updated my blog.
Things have been going very well here in Duran and time has been flying!
Since I am having such a hard time finding time to use the internet and update my blog I am going to try to update it a bit more frequently with short lil blurbs.
We´ll see how it goes.
Valdivia has been going very well. The kids are on break now so we have a good number of new kids. We are currently trying to prepare for the after school program Olympics where we will compete against the other programs in activities like relays, math and language activities, memory competitions, and other races. The kids are super excited for this so its a great incentive for them to behave well and have regular attendance. We got a donation of dodge balls and the kids absolutely love playing dodge ball. We also got a donation of a few puzzles and a memory game which has been great because we are now in the rainy season here in Duran and so we have to be creative in looking for activities for kids on the rainy days. One week our soccer court flooded so that it actually turned into a pool!! It was hillarious and comletely unexpected. Andrew and I showed up to work and found a handful of our kids with their shirts off, swimming in about 1.5-2 feet of super dirty water. So we had to send everybody home to get dry clothes. before starting the day. The following day we made newspaer sailboats and set them asail.... it was a great day and we all had a lot of fun!!!!
Alrighty well I think that is all that I am going to update for now... the sun is out again and the rain has stopped so I am going to head home and go eat. Then I am going over to one neighbors house and paint our nails and then over to Elizabeth´s where I am going to learn to make an Ecuadorian appetizer.
Enjoy the cool of winter!!!!
With warm blessings from Ecuador,
Melissa

November

Wow! I realize it has been a super long time since I have updated my blog...ooops.


The bad thing about it being so long is that a lot has happened.


I will try to get better about this... really... but know that if I am not spending much time in the cyber I am spending more time out with my wonderful Ecuadorian neighbors who I see so filled with God´s love.


We´ll do story by story to start this blog





W explains a part of Ecuador to Melissa and Tracy


So this past week Tracy and I gave a presentation on the benefits of breastfeeding at work and afterwards headed off to don W´s house to visit him. When we arrived he wasnt there so we sat and talked to his mom and learned how to make another yummy dish out of plantanes where it is basically this massive plantane ball that you eat... super yummy and yet ANOTHER great plantane dish! Nobody steal my idea, but I think i will just open up a plantane restaurant back in the USA to sell all of these awesome dishes made out of plantanes! :) When W came home we got to talking about how he has been helping his lawyer friends out with some cases and he explained a case to us that really opened ones eyes to the difficulties of corruption. His lawyer friend is a defense lawyer for a case where a guy got caught with drugs... aparently there is a certain amount of drugs a person can have on them and once it is over that weight then is when you can get in trouble. Well, long story short, the guy with the drugs says that the police put the drugs on him. W used to be a police officer and said that that is actually a very common thing that happens with the police officers. It was just so interesting and frustrating to learn all about this. W was super patient with us and was very willing to answer all of our questions about the Ecuadorian politics.... ok so my write up about this might sound boring... but really it was very interesting and a great conversation.


OH! So towards the end of that conversation Tracy and I were talking about saftey in Ecuador and it was really touching to hear W say that he prays for us very often and thanks God for our friendship. I cant describe the feeling that gave me but it was something that warmed me inside and and left me feeling almost overwhelmed by how blessed I am.



Comedor (soup kitchen) Friends

So things have been really busy at the soup kitchen lately.

I go straight there after I am done with work at the clinic everyday and it is a really rewarding part of my day. One thing I love so much is that as I walk in the doors of the little soccer court that is in front of the comedor I hear my name called out from all over and then get nearly tackled by a circle of BEAUTIFUL kids that come and give me a kiss on my cheek!! I LOVE KIDS !!! After that happens I seriously just want to jump up and give a lil shout for joy but I know it would scare a few people ---haha.
I have been trying to spend more time talking with the people that come to eat before we serve the food... I know there is a much greater emphasis at many soup kitchens back home on talking with the people there and getting to know them and understand them... hear their story. So that is what I have been trying to here in Ecuador. I sat down the other day and talked with a very nice and caring older woman with white hair... I had noticed that she was not there for a couple of days and she explained to me that she had been sick. She then explained how she lives all alone and how none of her kids check on her any more or maintain contact with her. So when she is sick, nobody knows. Later in the conversation I learned that she lives fairly close to my house and so I told her that I would like to stop by and visit sometime. The following week I left the soup kitchen with her (which means i didnt help do dishes...) and went to her house. Maria Avela lives in a situation like the majority of the people here in Duran. Dirt floor, no water. Some of her walls were old wood, others cane and she had metal over it all as a roof. She kept on telling me how this is all she has but that i am welcome to come over any time-¨if the padlock isnt on the door then I am here¨is what she would say. She invited me to come in and sit on her bed in a very small small room and she showed me her box of clothes that she keeps so that she can sew them to different sizes and sell them because that is the only way she can make money. The day before she had sold a dress and with that money had bought a jug of clean water to drink ( drinking the water here is dangerous). In one corner of the room she had a lil wooden shelf . That corner was covered with pictures of Jesus, crosses, saints, and rosary beads. She explained that that is where she prays every day when she wakes up, before she leaves the house and when she goes to bed. She then pulled out an old photo album and showed me pictures of all of her kids and her husbands funeral announcement. She began to cry as she explained to me that she has 10 kids and none of them have even talked to her in years. She said that they used to call a neighbors cell phone and then sometimes talk to her but that hasnt happended for a while. (NOTE- people have cell phones but not because they are rich... they are the phones like you can buy at target and put minutes on with a phone card... and they are used because hardly anybody can afford a landline) Talking with Maria was so hard because it was such reminder of the extreme difficulty so so many people live with here... true poverty... it left me feeling hurt but I know that was good. Even though what I really want to give Maria is a nice place to live and plenty of food to eat ( like everyone here) I know that I cant but I do want to make sure to give her what I Can - I want to give her my time and friendship and help her to know what a beautiful person she is and see God in her. I will actually be walking over to her place today and hopefully introducing her to someone from my house.
The little time with Maria really helped me to remember to think more about the situations that our kids at Valdivia come from and be more patient with them.

As I said earlier, I have been getting know the kids at the comedor too. Several of them come to Valdivia everyday so I know them really well. One little girl, Tabatha, gives the absolute BEST kisses on the cheek. She tells everyone that she is my sister so as I bring the kids their food they will ask me if its true and I just smile and say yes and then we all laugh. So our lil joke there is that Tabatha, who is 4, is my sister. :) I have decided that I want to teach my kids to give people kisses on the cheek so that they can brighten peoples day the way they do mine here.

First Communion
So the ladies at the Comedor invited us to come and help last saturday with preparing the food for the First communion. We were really excited to help with this because this was a special first communion of kids from the comedor and some of the kids were also Valdivia kids. So Karen and I went ot the comedor at 8 am on Saturday and helped prepare chicken salad sandwhiches and hotdogs and then we asked if we could sneak out for a bit to watch parts of the mass. SO we went into the church and saw all of the kids dressed so cute and we just looked at eachother with faces of excitement and like proud parents. I really felt like a mom... i was so happy for them, so proud of them, and i just about wanted to cry. 2 of our kids actually got baptized too so it was SO Incredibly touching and exciting! We got right up front and were taking pictures like moms too.
Karen is good about posting those so I will have to get them from here but i just wanted to share another exciting day in Ecuador.

Valdivia After School Program
So our Valdivia program has been going really well and we have been getting more and more kids. This week we had about 30-35 kids each day. Another thing I love about Valdivia.... kids! (Which is good consider that is what Valdivia is all about... right??)
I just sit back at different times during the time there and think to myself what wonderful kids these are and how I want the world for them!
Last friday we had the 3 different after school programs get together for a soccer tournament. So all last week during our free time we had our kids playing soccer (which is actually results in a lot of whining and requires a daily pep talk for some of our kids because so many of them love playing basketball instead). Considering this, we had many of our kids on a cheer squad and so during free time they made signs and cheers instead of practcing their soccer skills.
Oh! and by the way, Valdivia is super crafty! So Karen and I have been saving all of these nutrigrain granola bar boxes from the Soup kitchen (they got a huge donation and have been giving people them as they leave) so we have been creatively using these boxes in our valdivia activities. Andrew, another volunteer, was very creative and thought to use the boxes to make the kids jerseys to tape on to their shirts for the game. SO, lets just say that our kids definitely had the coolest most chevere uniforms at the tournament!!. :)
So we met Friday and had 29 people with us after taping the cardboard jerseys to the kids shirts, we all hopped on a bus and went over to the Arbolito community´s sweet soccer court that has a roof which is great because that means SHADE!
Lets just say Karen,Andrew, and I were all super pumped to bring our kids there but we were pretty sure that we would be bringing home the 3rd place pop-bottle trophey that our kids had made and not one of the 1st or 2nd place pop-bottle tropheys :)
Well lets just say that it was some super intense games that had me screaming out cheers until I nearly lost my voice and jumping and running all over the place cheering my kids on!
I was SO proud to see our kids playing so well... they werent fighting, pushing, complaining or anything!!! All of our pep talks about kindness and fairness duriing the week must have actually sank in!!! IT was AWESOME!!!
BUT!!!!! waht makes it even more awesome is that somehow our kids WON!!!!!!!! Both of the big kid games were won by team Valdivia!!! YIPPIE!!!
I left that day feeling super proud of our kids and just super filled with happiness.
The kids we work with are truly amazing and such blessings from God!

One thing that I would like to ask of all of you reading this is to please keep the kids in Valdivia and all of the afterschool programs and just in Duran in your prayers. They all live in very difficult situations and so many are malnourished and hungry for both food and so much more.
We are actually trying to gather kids vitamins to give to the kids at our afterschool programs.
SO if anyone would like to donate any or would know of any more sustainable ideas for vitamin donations please message me or drop me an email at melissaviaene@gmail.com

Update time

Well, I figured it was about time that I added an update so that the first thing you saw on my blog wouldnt be the title of my last entry about hating ants :)
Overall things have been going pretty well here. Things have been difficult lately because I have really wanted to be with family-my great aunt Lorraine passed away this past monday and I really wish I could be there for my family and to mourne her death with others who loved her so deeply. Please keep the family in your prayers- especially my great uncle Ed and my grandma.
This past week was a big week at work because at the clinic Tracy and I were asked to do a presentation on HIV for kids at the school right next to the clinic. So we worked hard all week to put together an interesting and interactive presentation on HIV and living healthy lives. The day of our presentation was thursday and we were super excited because we put together this really sweet game where we had a bunch o f cards with myths and facts on them-the kids had to decide as a group whether something was a myth or a fact and then put the card under the correct area on the board. The other super cool thing we put together was a demonstratin of the progression of HIV in the body... we had sweet props to stick onto a person that represented white blood cells, bacteria and HIV. When we practiced the presentation for the director of the school she said we should be teachers because it was really creative (but we couldnt take all the credit for that because we got the ideas for the activities from resources that our incountry director Megan had-Gracias Megan!)
So the big day came and we even got candies for the kids that helped during the presentation. We found out thursday morning taht we were going to do 2 presentations instead of one which we were just fine with. The difficult part came when we saw the age of the kids that entered the room for this added presentation. They were kids in 2nd-4th grade and we had planned our presentation for kids in7-10th grade. Before starting the presentation tracy and i cut some stuff out that just wouldnt be undersdtood by this group... and after starting we had new difficulties added to the list... first, all of the teachers of these kids left the room...yikes! 40 kids without the people they see as authority figures! Then groups of kids had to leave to go present their projects for the values fair that was going on. Well, when this group got up and left so did other kids and then the mass chaos started. kids were running in and out of the room talking and a whole lot of chaos filled the room. Tracy and I ended the presentation early with the group and took a breather before the next one came
We were SUPER DUPER grateful to see that the next group was actually the correct age group and things went much better the second time around.
Heres the other funny part of this whole ordeal. So there are three ways HIV can be transmitted. By blood, by sexual relations, and from mother to child. Well the school director told us during our practice that we couldnt say sexual relations and that instead we needed to say ¨lack of chastity¨tracy and I tried to explain our point that the kids at this age would be able to hear those words an that the new wording may lead to some confusting .... but our words didnt convince her. So just as we had predicted, during the presentation someone raises their hand and asks... well what is chastity? Tracy and i took a quick second to laugh inside ... a bit of a ¨see we told you¨. Luckily the teacher had told us that if necesary we could say HIV can be transmitted by ¨being¨with someone ... so we pulled out this new wording and after repeating it about 4 times and moving our fingers to emphasis the quotations around ¨being¨I think the kid understood that lack of chastity or being with someone is related to sexual relations....oh boy.
So after a draining experience with the presentations we went home and just said.... ¨welcome to Ecuador¨.
Overall it was super awesome though and we are excited to do other presentations... we just learned that we will have to adapt

I do NOT love ANTS!!!!

So! I said that I had another lil something to talk about...
well in my previous entry I intentionally left out a detail.
I woke up this morning on the floor of our living room....well on my mattress on the floor.
Why did my bed get put out there??? Well...!ª!!!
Two nights ago I came home SUPER tierd after a long community meeting and it was late ... 11:30 pm so I was more than ready to jump into bed. Well, just as I was getting into bed I looked down and noticed that my pillow and parts of my sheets were SWARMING ... I mean SWARMING with ants!!!!!! AGH!!! So after splurting out not pretty things I wrapped up my sheets and put them in the washer and put new sheets on my bed. I slept that night always worried that I felt an ant on me.
The next night I come into my room, again, very tierd and ready to escape into my Nicholas Sparks book. I learned the night before to look down before getting in... and upon doing so I noticed that my sheets were SUPER SWARMING with one area of ants and another of baby spiders... I have NO idea where the spiders came from ... but I followed the trail of the ants and found that they were coming out of one of my electrical outlets!!!!!! My sheets from the night before werent even dry yet!!!! luckily we had extra sheets.
I decided that there was NO WAY i was sleeping in my room taht night and I proceeded to take my bed out and move it into the living room. I have slept there for 2 nights now as I am spraying ant killer ALL OVER my room in hopes of putting off their next attack.
So...
That´s my ant excitement.
I am now going to head home to spray some more RAID Gold!
Belssings to all of you.

Great Day!

Hola a todos!
I had such a great day today that I had to share it with everyone. Really have been doing really well here in Ecuador and often find myself walking down the street with a big smile on my face thinking about how thankful I am to have been blessed with this opportunity.
So... I feel like I have SOOO much to share with everyone that I just dont know where to begin... I have a list but I am going to start with today and will come back another day to add things that are on my list.
So... today I woke up and ate some leftover bread pudding (I think that´s what it´s called... mom-is that right??) It was very tasty. When we have leftover bread we have been saving it in the fridge after it gets stale and when we have enought we tear it up and put it in a pan with a simple egg milk and yummy stuff mixture and after some time in the oven.... tadaaaaa ... we have a yummy treat!
So it was great to start off the day with the yummy bread and also to be very well rested... our WHOLE House was sound asleep by 10:00 last night! You know when people in their 20s are really tierd when they are ready for bed by 9:30 pm!!! It felt soo good to get some rest though... we were all shot! So much so that last night we decided not to talk in Spanish during supper like we usually do on Wednesdays.
I left the house this morning well nourished and excited for the day. I was even more excited after our new guard gave me a wonderful heart felt greeting too.
Once I got to work I was met with surprise... I got to help the nurses today!! So I spent the day helping the nurses take temperature, weight, height, and head circumference of babies and then I got to meet the pediatritian. Then I got to watch some ultrasound tests. In the middle of all of this excitement one of the nurses asked if i would do her a favor. She introduced me to a nice, frail, old woman and asked me to walk her up the hill to get some food. Our clinic is located at the foot of this HUGE hill and right behind the clinic there is a church and a school. It turns out that this lady, Piedad, comes weekly to receive food from the school kitchen. I assisted her in walking up the steps of the school (telling here that this was just like I help my own grandma). On the way there she explained to me how her and her husband live all alone and dont have any kids to care for them. They are very very poor and dont have enough money for food and medicine so the clinic helps them out by giving them food every 8 days. It was so nice to get to walk with her and talk with her and at the top of the hill she introduced me to the kitchen staff.
The staff there was very nice and they were excited to show me the really nice garden they had just planted in plant beds. I was incredibly excited because they had Zucchini !!!!! They dont have this normally in ecuador but they said that someone had brought it over from Europe. I was so excited to see it and told them that I would for surely come back and bring them some great recipes! I am so excited to do this!
After work I went straight over to the soup kitchen where i have been helping out everyday after work. I absolutely love helping out there. The ladies are so nice and are very happy to teach me about the food and how to cook different dishes. They were excited to hear about how my attempt at making Sango de Atun went the night before... and I was excited to tell them that it went well and everybody enjoyed it. They were kind enought to offer me my daily glass of colada ( a drink that reminds me of malt-o-meal that they make by cooking ground up oatmeal with a bunch of water and juice and then sifting out the oatmeal). It has become part of a tradition that they set aside a glass of this for me each day. Today I also enjoyed a plate of rice with menestra ... a mix of vegetables and lentils. It was great.
As I said earlier, I really love helping out at the soup kitchen. Several of the kids that come to the Valdivia afterschool program that I work at are there each day and it is nice to interact with them more. We have been praying the rosary each day before we eat and I have been bringing the 3 rosaries that we have in the house with me so that the kids can follow along. I have taught the other kids to follow along with their fingers. This is still super hard for some of the kids to sit through but i think they are improving. Overall I just cant begin to describe how the time I spend working there fills me.
This afternoon at the Valdivia afterschool program we made prayer books with all of the kids and then took them in small groups into the chapel of the chruch for adoration. (valdivia takes place in the church yard where we use the soup kitchen space, the library, and the basketball-soccer court)
It was really great to see the kids take time and pray before the blessed sacrament. It was especially great to see how happy it made some of the elders of the church to have the children there. One of the older men told me that we should bring the kids there each week (adoration is every Thursday). After having such a great experience with it today, we decided that we would like to do that. It has been such a blessing to work witht the kids and get to know them so well through this after school program, Valdivia. I love them all so much!
Okay I think that is enough for todays write up... now i am going to write a lil about the opposite of love that I have for something here in Ecuador.

But before I close this one off....
A note about Valdivia... If you have any ideas for some neat activities to do with kids PLEASE email them to me!!!! We are always looking for educational activites! the kids range in age from 6-14 :)
Gracias!!!