day eighty eight - running club

Ok so i realized i said stay tuned for pictures from the jungle...so i´ll put up a couple from our trip. But really we just went to the city, Macas by the jungle. it really was a sweet trip though. I really get super lazy with taking photos. i hate packing around my camera. oh the downfalls of great technology. Macas was beautiful. A small city where everyone seems to know everyone. It was SO hot and humid there, my hair curled instantly. It was a nice change from cold Riobamba. I went for a walk at 8 in the morning and it was already hot. and we all went out at night and at 10 it was still hot. It was really really green. It actually reminded me of the island a LOT especially the drive from port to nanaimo. the only thing that seemed different is that there were vines. and way more waterfalls. and our trees are bigger. OK so it was different. but still.

Isaac and Georgina, the Ark´s social worker needed to go there because Isaac used to have a children´s home there which got closed because of lack of funds. The kids were moved to the Ark in Riobamba, so they need to go there often to visit families. this time one of the kids, Mariano, was going home. This is Alicia and Mariano pretending to be tough.


Alicia has been really ambitious and has started running. I love running...I love thinking about running. Man it´s so hard to start once you haven´t run in so long. Well the other day she got Isaac and Frejol and I to go with her and we decided to start a running club. We´re getting shirts. and sweatbands. But this isn´t just any running club. There are other things involved like hopping, skipping, jumping...and parkore. And if you want to join you have to be initiated. or as Alicia calls it...hazed. We´re still figuring out the deets.

I have about 3 more days of relative relaxation before the chaos starts. This weekend some of us are going to this party somewhere...and to hike part of the Inca Trail maybe. As you can see i´m not exactly sure yet. But in July i´m helping Gaby with a summer tutoring program. I´ll be helping her with the English part. I´ll also be helping Zoe with a vacation bible school program at the Ark. There may or may not be a trip to the beach in there too. It´s hard to think of it like this because once july is gone...i´m pretty much coming home.

Learning more about trust daily. Peace, prayer, and contentment.
Daniela (i realized that if i spell my name Daniella here it´s pronounced Dan-ee-ay-ja).
so daniela it is.

day eighty five - mas o menos

God is more beautifully ridiculous than i have ever thought before. Just how interested he is in every small detail. How he likes to give us good things. How he is in control of everything...and likes to make us think we´re making our own decisions but really...he already knew. I thought it was my own decision to come here. And it was in a way. God didn´t tell me to come here he just said it was ok. But he knew. And he had a plan.
Trust means walking forward through your fears, not because you know the outcome because we can´t...but because we know God knows where we´re going and that´s enough for me.
Romans 8:28

day seventy eight - oops

this is definitely the longest i have gone without blogging. which is too bad because so much has been happening. i guess that´s one reason i haven´t been blogging. but i guess it doesn´t really matter. i really have no idea how many people read it anyways, i mostly just do it for myself. i would say i write for my mother´s peace of mind but i don´t think she even reads it haha. ok...first of all our trip to Colombia.

Alicia and I went with Blass, his nephew Brian, and Wilson to Quito to try to renew our visas...pretty much ended up on a wild goose chase to office after office. finally found the right one but it was only open for a couple hours the next morning. we went the next morning after staying at our friends house which was amazing, were waiting in line, and ended up talking to other gringos about visas and figured out we didnt have the right papers, and didn´t have enough time to get the right papers. there was a small loophole...if we could leave the country, when we re-entered Ecuador they may overlook it and just stamp our passports with new visas. We tried it...and long story short it worked. Wilson went with us and we spent many many hours on busses and in taxis, spent the night in Colombia, saw an amazing Cathedral, i ate a waffle that was sent from heaven, and we came back. Travelled for over 12 hours. one of the busses was filled with blackberries. i mean FILLED. no floor space at all. so there we were figuring out how many ways we could eat blackberries...at 4 in the morning. bizarre. i ate something weird in colombia and felt nauseous for the next week.







i moved out of the Ark about a week ago. i think. the move has been good. i still go to the ark every day, or almost every day. but its been great to have more time to hang out with the street church, learn more spanish, and experience family life in riobamba. The family is amazing. Gabby, the daughter, knows english really well and she´s going to be teaching me spanish soon.

yesterday i went to Chambo with Alicia and Wilson. Transportation is so easy here. You can just hop on a bus and go somewhere for 25 cents. transportation is really cheap but everything else seems really expensive. Food costs about the same...but clothes cost like 50-80% more. My jacket was stolen in Colombia so i´ve been trying to find a new one but it´s really expensive here. Anyways, we went to Chambo and lo and behold there´s a full out outdoor/indoor waterpark with waterslides and everything! in the middle of nowhere. seriously. we got there a bit late and it was getting cold but we´re going there another day. We saw a big field and we decided to see if we could find frogs. we didn´t. but the grass was so thick i decided to lay down and have a nap. And alicia and wicho decided to take off their shoes and socks and go romp around in the field. they threw dried poo at me and asked a lady if they could touch her sheep. she said no. then we caught some grasshoppers...then caught a bus back to riobamba (like 20 minutes).
just a typical day with alicia and wicho. When we got back we played Futbol (soccer) with a bunch of guys and Naomi until like 10 at night. it was really great. the world cup is going on...im sure all of Canada has no clue but here it´s huge.

i guess that covers most of the high points. low points...my eyes got the crazy volcano disease again but thankfully this time i knew which eye drops to buy so it went away in a day. the volcano has been pretty quiet lately but will once in a while throw up a huge plume of black smoke and ash. thankfully the ash has mostly stayed away from riobamba. i think it´s about 30 miles away. going to the jungle tomorrow...stay tuned for pictures!!