Merry Wanderer of the Night:
Travel

I thought you all might want to know how things are going with Merry. She seems to be doing well, for the most part. She still has meltdowns once in a while but she really enjoys having so many other kids around. She sees her cousins all the time and there is also a little girl next door who comes over to visit a lot. She still talks mostly in English but the Spanish words are starting to come out. It is usually a noun here or there, mixed in with the English. For example she'll say "I want a 'galleta' (cookie)" or "I want a 'manzana' (apple). The other day she used two Spanish words together: "We have 'dos manzanas' (two apples)". Today she was playing with the little girl next door and I heard her say "come" (eat). It is really interesting to see how she is starting to pick up Spanish words. It must be frustrating for her at times because the other kids don't always understand what she is saying. Often I'll try to help her by translating or telling her what to say in Spanish. But I'm not always there so she is on her own a lot. Despite the language barrier she has made a lot of friends at school, and as I mentioned before she loves playing with her cousins.

Surprisingly she hasn't been sick much. Last week she had a slight fever and we kept her home from school one day but besides that things have been pretty good. When we were here visiting two years ago she had a cough the whole time and on top of that she got sick and she got an ear infection. But so far things have been going well. I'm making sure that she gets lots of rest and I give her vitamins every day. Lucho, on the other hand, is sick in bed with a fever today. I've been giving him teas and medicine all day.

For those of you who have been wondering…. yes, our stuff arrived safely in Loja about a week and a half ago. Lucho was able to get everything through customs without any problems. The only snag came at the end of the first day. The truck was on the way out the door and the last step was to weigh the container. For some reason the weight was about 1,000 pounds less than what was stated on the document. We don’t know exactly what happened but we think that it wasn’t weighed correctly in the States, or they estimated it wrong. At any rate, the truck was almost out the door but was turned around at the last minute, very frustrating. The next day everything was re-inspected (we were charged an additional $70 for that) and it was allowed to go. It was such a relief to call Lucho and find out that our stuff was out of the port and on its way to his uncle’s warehouse.

The next step was to get our things from Guayaquil, which is located on the coast, to Loja, which is in the mountains. Lucho’s uncle lent him one of his trucks (we never would have been able to do all this without his help) and we paid the driver and another guy to help Lucho pack up the truck and drive to Loja. The trip usually takes about 8 hours, but it was slow going because of the loaded truck and because the roads were bad due to the recent rains, so the trip ended up taking about 12 hours total. They left Guayaquil at 7 a.m. on Saturday and arrived in Loja around 9 pm that night. We had rented a storage unit around the corner from Lucho’s mom’s house so the whole family was waiting there for him to show up. We were all there to greet him when they rounded the corner, horn blaring. I took some pictures (see below) of the unloading.

Since then we have been slowly going through our stuff and bringing selected things to our place. Some of our things will remain in storage until we build our apartment. Unpacking is hard work, and we are both exhausted. On top of that we live on the 4th floor so everything has to be hauled up 4 flights of stairs (luckily we have the help of Lucho’s family for this). It’s been good exercise. To date we’ve unpacked our beds, our TV and DVD, some kitchen supplies, most of Merry’s toys, some of our clothes, and, today, the computer. We were happy to find out that our computer and printer made the trip intact and are working perfectly. We also brought a bunch of things for the restaurant that Lucho is slowly putting to use. One of the things is an espresso machine and I’m looking forward to relaxing in Siembra with a hot cappuccino sometime in the near future.

I’ll have to say that it is nice to walk around the apartment and see so many familiar things like our bed, the TV, even my knives in the kitchen! When we sent everything off in Sacramento I decided that I wasn’t going to worry about if everything would arrive safely or not. I just put everything out of my mind and told myself that if they arrived, great, if not, well, we did the best we could. So it is very satisfying to have everything arrive safely.

One of the first words students of the Spanish language learn is “vamos” (let’s go). Here in Ecuador (and I suspect many other Latin countries) “vamos” is pretty much a way of life. By that I mean that many (most) things are done on the spur of the moment, without much planning. People will take an idea or suggestion and run with it, dropping everything else along the way. For example, the other day I idly mentioned to Lucho that the door between the kitchen and the dining area served no useful purpose and that it might be a good idea to remove it. He agreed with me and then said “do you want me to take it out right now?” Or when I ask someone what they are planning to do for the day, half the time they’ll tell me and then say “vamos, do you want to come with me?” This means that plans change in an instant and on any given day I’ll end up doing about 10 things that I never expected to do.

I’ve given up telling Merry what our plans are more than a few hours in advance because invariably something changes and we don’t end up doing what she was looking forward to doing. And I’m not the only one who does this. Sometimes I think that people are being extremely vague, or even evasive, about what they are up to, but the reality is that they may have a goal in mind, but they just don’t know if they will be able to accomplish it anytime soon.

Sometimes it is hard for me adjust to this because I am a planner at heart. I’m the kind of person who likes to make a list of things to do at the beginning of the day and cross them off as they get done. I still make my lists (at least mentally) but I scale back on the things I want to do, and if I don’t get something done, oh well, maybe it will get done another day. In the meantime I may get some things accomplished that I hadn’t planned on getting done that day. I have learned to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. So for example, if the cell phone company calls and tells us that we have to do something in their office downtown, I’ll also find something else to do while I’m there, like checking our P.O. Box or buying some paper at the bookstore.

As you can imagine, partly because of this “last minute” culture, the passage of time is viewed a little differently here. People often arrive late, and many things take much longer than originally planned; but it is all much more accepted than it would be in the States. Of course, this varies depending on the person and some people are much more difficult to pin down than others. For example, one of Lucho’s sisters is notorious for showing up hours late or not getting things done on time. She is also extremely busy because she works two jobs and is involved in many other endeavors. That means that there are many opportunities for her to be “detoured” into something new. So everyone knows that if she says she is going to be somewhere “right away” it will be at least an hour. If she says “1/2 hour” it may be a couple of hours, and if she says “one hour” well, we might as well wait until the next day!

Also, everyone seems to take on new projects quickly (“vamos!”, let’s do it!), without as much preparation as I’m used to. If an opportunity presents itself, they take it, be it something small like going over to a friend’s house for coffee after running into them on the street or something big like trying to buy the apartment next door because it happens to be for sale, or starting in on a new business because a friend needs some investment cash (and by the way we need the money tomorrow). Projects are dropped just as quickly too. So someone can spend all evening discussing the perfect undertaking with you. Lots of plans will be made and future meetings scheduled. Everyone will part full of energy and enthusiasm for the next steps. Then, inexplicably, you will never hear from that person ever again. Someone else got to them and “vamos” they’re off to the next venture.

According to the plans, the new museum will have to adhere to strict bio-climatic architectural standards and must be situated as far away as possible from the sea, in order to better protect the antiquities and the museum itself from the elements.

The new museum will occupy a space of at least 5,000 square meters and will feature all of the exhibits displayed in the existing museum, along with many other artefacts located on the island’s archaeological sites and in storage.

The funds for the construction plans were donated by the London-based International Foundation for Greece.

Source: To Vima [January 23, 2015]

"Tragedies are caused by differences and by a lack of tolerance. Glory be to Him who creates greatness out of difference and lets peace and reconciliation reign," they teach us.