hello to everyone in our address book! first i need to say that i am using a spanish keyboard and everything is weird i cannot figure out how to use capital letters lol. so anyways it has been a long few days we are here and are safe! our journey started thursday morning...we arrived at the airport got to the ticket counter and the lady who took Kayla's passport looked at us and said she can't go. we just stared at her, what do you mean she cant go? apparently to fly into quito your passport has to be valid for 6 months from the day you leave... her passport expied dec 1st and it was june 7th ...6days short!!! so to make a long story short we rushed to the federal building, cried to cut in the front of the line and after a very long 10 hour day of lines we got the passport!
so on friday we started the adventure again, my parents called it ground hog day so agian we went to the aiport and this time were able to get on the plane. at midnight we arrived in quito where we were picked up and taken to the quito volunteer house. we were greeted by 2 armed guards, no worries they are there to guard the house! we slept on bunkbeds that wobbled and were built with just sheet wood. at 6 am we got on the flight to cuenca, where we are today.
there has been so much to take in! we were greeted by 12 girls and 2 boys all of whom we will be living with for the next few months. the project directors and sweethearts and the house in very nice and very grande. today we had 3 orientations and were able to explore the city with our site leader. let me tell you that we stand out like a sore thumb!! especially me with the blond hair! the men just love us lol... we didnt go more than 20 feet with out getting a new cat call.. and quite frankly the city is scary!
there is mass poverty but also some very beautiful areas. we went to visit the coconut man. he carves beautiful jewlery out of this hardened fruit and it looks like ivory.
tomorrow we start our first shifts in the orphanage. 2 shifts... one from 7am til noon then we all come home and eat, mon through fri there is a cook who makes lunch. then we go to an afternoon shift around 2 and and come home at 7.
this shal be an adventure!
thank you for all your love and support
jess and kayla
p.s. appreciate your toliets! we are not allowed to flush anything down them, yes that includes toliet paper... so the little trash can by the toliet... yah, disgusting.
Hello family and friends!
We have completed our first week here, although it feels as if we have been here for a month. We work 2 shifts a day. The first is from 7-12. The second is from 2-6. In between we have a cook who cooks for us Monday-Friday. A typical meal consits of rice, potatoe, broccoli and some kind of meat.
Speaking of food, we had our first adventure to the supermaxi, that would be the grocery store. It was an adventure! There is no freezer section!! I wasn't aware that humans could survive with no frozen foods! Eggs are not kept in the fridge! We also had our first trip to the fruit market which is tables piled high of fresh fruits and veggies. There are people hand peeling pees, shucking corn, and using huge knives to chop bark off some types of roots.
We were able to go to Corpus Criste a huge celebration that has lasted over a week and when Ecuadorians party they party!! This is how Kayla described it "It was chaos! now i know why there are so many laws in the united stated we almost died like five times! There were paper cows with fireworks blowing off of them running threw masses of people. Dancers dressed in crazy costumes. Piles and piles of Ecuadorian candy. *we tried them ALL and no one got sick... so far!* There were giant barneys walking around and painted people. We had the Spanish teacher take us around so we were as safe as we could be"
Ok so back to what really matters... the work we are doing here!! So we work 2 shifts a day 7 days a week, and have only 2 shifts off a week! In addition on Wed and Thur nights we go to another orphanage from 6-7:30. On Tuesdays we have group meetings, on Sundays we have devotional, one day we go to supermaxi and one day we go to fruit buy so it is really busy! Some Sundays we get to go to church. I have been both Sundays and it has been wonderful! Although I cannot understand anything other than Jesus Cristo when we sing in Spanish the spirit is really strong. They have a keyboard and the boy who plays it must be about 6. The branch only has like 40 people in it!
We work in a total of 7 orphanages although we each have one that we work in the most. I work the most with the toddlers, almost everyday and Kayla works with the babies. Ecuadorian law does not allow us to use the names of the orphanages, the kids, or have any pictures of identifying infomation about the children sent to anyone, so I will try and tell you as much as I can. Kayla's kids are 2 days old to 2 years old. Mine are 2 years old to 5. In Kayla's section they just found a 2 day old abandoned baby. She does work such as change diapers, dress the kids, feed them, brush their teeth, bathe them and play with them. I do the same thing. She has about 8 ids and 4 babies and there are usually 2 to 3 girls working each shift. Where I work it is divided into 3 sections. Casa uno, dos and tres. The kids are divided by age and on average are 8 kids in each casa and one of us in each. They are adorable and have so much love for us! They call us mama which breaks my heart every time.
We also get to work in an orphanage with more babies and some handicapped children and another one with just severley handicapped children. The orphanages here are not what I expected. They are actual very nice! Some have volunteers that come from the community and they have everything they need... so it is not the run down desperation that I thought it would be. The kids eat basically soup and they grind up all the food into mush for the most part.
Anyway this is getting kind of long. We shal write more later, now we are trying to get Kayla registered to possibly to go BYUI in fall!!!!! :)
Thanks for all the love and support!
Jess and Kayla
Pictures from Ecuador... without the kids can be looked at at
http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112809&l=99995&id=17802249
read more "Ecuador"
so on friday we started the adventure again, my parents called it ground hog day so agian we went to the aiport and this time were able to get on the plane. at midnight we arrived in quito where we were picked up and taken to the quito volunteer house. we were greeted by 2 armed guards, no worries they are there to guard the house! we slept on bunkbeds that wobbled and were built with just sheet wood. at 6 am we got on the flight to cuenca, where we are today.
there has been so much to take in! we were greeted by 12 girls and 2 boys all of whom we will be living with for the next few months. the project directors and sweethearts and the house in very nice and very grande. today we had 3 orientations and were able to explore the city with our site leader. let me tell you that we stand out like a sore thumb!! especially me with the blond hair! the men just love us lol... we didnt go more than 20 feet with out getting a new cat call.. and quite frankly the city is scary!
there is mass poverty but also some very beautiful areas. we went to visit the coconut man. he carves beautiful jewlery out of this hardened fruit and it looks like ivory.
tomorrow we start our first shifts in the orphanage. 2 shifts... one from 7am til noon then we all come home and eat, mon through fri there is a cook who makes lunch. then we go to an afternoon shift around 2 and and come home at 7.
this shal be an adventure!
thank you for all your love and support
jess and kayla
p.s. appreciate your toliets! we are not allowed to flush anything down them, yes that includes toliet paper... so the little trash can by the toliet... yah, disgusting.
Hello family and friends!
We have completed our first week here, although it feels as if we have been here for a month. We work 2 shifts a day. The first is from 7-12. The second is from 2-6. In between we have a cook who cooks for us Monday-Friday. A typical meal consits of rice, potatoe, broccoli and some kind of meat.
Speaking of food, we had our first adventure to the supermaxi, that would be the grocery store. It was an adventure! There is no freezer section!! I wasn't aware that humans could survive with no frozen foods! Eggs are not kept in the fridge! We also had our first trip to the fruit market which is tables piled high of fresh fruits and veggies. There are people hand peeling pees, shucking corn, and using huge knives to chop bark off some types of roots.
We were able to go to Corpus Criste a huge celebration that has lasted over a week and when Ecuadorians party they party!! This is how Kayla described it "It was chaos! now i know why there are so many laws in the united stated we almost died like five times! There were paper cows with fireworks blowing off of them running threw masses of people. Dancers dressed in crazy costumes. Piles and piles of Ecuadorian candy. *we tried them ALL and no one got sick... so far!* There were giant barneys walking around and painted people. We had the Spanish teacher take us around so we were as safe as we could be"
Ok so back to what really matters... the work we are doing here!! So we work 2 shifts a day 7 days a week, and have only 2 shifts off a week! In addition on Wed and Thur nights we go to another orphanage from 6-7:30. On Tuesdays we have group meetings, on Sundays we have devotional, one day we go to supermaxi and one day we go to fruit buy so it is really busy! Some Sundays we get to go to church. I have been both Sundays and it has been wonderful! Although I cannot understand anything other than Jesus Cristo when we sing in Spanish the spirit is really strong. They have a keyboard and the boy who plays it must be about 6. The branch only has like 40 people in it!
We work in a total of 7 orphanages although we each have one that we work in the most. I work the most with the toddlers, almost everyday and Kayla works with the babies. Ecuadorian law does not allow us to use the names of the orphanages, the kids, or have any pictures of identifying infomation about the children sent to anyone, so I will try and tell you as much as I can. Kayla's kids are 2 days old to 2 years old. Mine are 2 years old to 5. In Kayla's section they just found a 2 day old abandoned baby. She does work such as change diapers, dress the kids, feed them, brush their teeth, bathe them and play with them. I do the same thing. She has about 8 ids and 4 babies and there are usually 2 to 3 girls working each shift. Where I work it is divided into 3 sections. Casa uno, dos and tres. The kids are divided by age and on average are 8 kids in each casa and one of us in each. They are adorable and have so much love for us! They call us mama which breaks my heart every time.
We also get to work in an orphanage with more babies and some handicapped children and another one with just severley handicapped children. The orphanages here are not what I expected. They are actual very nice! Some have volunteers that come from the community and they have everything they need... so it is not the run down desperation that I thought it would be. The kids eat basically soup and they grind up all the food into mush for the most part.
Anyway this is getting kind of long. We shal write more later, now we are trying to get Kayla registered to possibly to go BYUI in fall!!!!! :)
Thanks for all the love and support!
Jess and Kayla
Pictures from Ecuador... without the kids can be looked at at
http://byu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2112809&l=99995&id=17802249
