Frustrations

Frustrations

6/16/12

            Yesterday was officially two weeks of being in this wonderful country. I’ve been blessed to be able to make up sleep enough for the last like year of my life (I know I’ve stayed healthy BECAUSE I’ve been able to sleep!). I’ve also been blessed with an incredible family that I’ve gotten to spend time with and gotten closer to these past few weeks. I can definitely see my relationships getting stronger- with my family, with my friends, and most importantly, with God. I’ve really had so much time to reflect on things, as well as have some legitimate Ecuadorian experiences! I think most of all I have really learned to calm down my intense reactions to my rollercoaster emotions. Yesterday was definitely one of those “test me” days…

            Yesterday Santiago and I decided to go to see a movie. Before doing that, we ate eggs (which we bought the other night, and I absolutely love because Santiago makes them perfectly, and I’m not even exaggerating) for lunch. Then we headed off onto the bus, where Santiago saw his best friend. Santiago explained that girls are much different than guys because when he saw his friend, he was not at all ready to go jump on him to say hi because we would “see him on the bus”, so they just nodded at each other. Girls, on the other hand, do not hesitate to scream the other one’s name and run to greet them.

            After Santiago’s conversation with his friend (which he said the typical guy conversation as “que mas, como estas, muy bien, no mas”), I started asking about political things after seeing an ad, so thoughtfully written with spray paint on a wall, that gave a number to get an abortion. I asked what people thought of that here, and he told me that many people are against abortion.

            So I asked him about all the typical political things and about his president. When we finished talking, we got to the big, overwhelming mall. I have to say, that every time I’m in public here, I get nervous. I feel like I’m being looked at because I’m a few shades lighter (and not even that light- I’m actually pretty dark!). It’s intimidating to be looked at in the first place, but it’s more intimidating to be looked at by people from another culture that don’t speak your language.

            So needless to say, I’m nervous in that mall. We went to the movie theaters to see if Men in Black was playing, but it was only playing in Spanish. Frustration #1: you can’t really go online beforehand to check what movies are playing in English. So we stood there for a bit trying to figure out what to do. Frustration #2: I’m getting extremely hot and tired, and for some reason, I felt like I was going to faint at any moment. Standing was not helping.

            We finally decided to go see “Contraband”, which actually looked interesting and was playing in English. We bought the tickets, but we had to wait an hour, so we went to sit down. I kept seeing people with ice cream, and it made me really want one, so we went to find ice cream. Frustration #3: every ice cream flavor in this country is FRUIT. I don’t like fruit in ice cream form, so we tried to find somewhere that had something else. They had Baskin Robbins, so I decided to get ice cream from there. Thank goodness they had mint chocolate chip ice cream, hahaha. However, Frustration #4: I basically paid $1 for a cone. They gave me one small scoop of ice cream in a huge cone. I was very confused and very frustrated, but I ate it anyway, and it was good.

            Then we went to go into the movie. Frustration #5: You can’t bring any bags into the movie theater. Seriously, none. Even if you don’t have any food or whatever in it, you can’t bring it. There goes my necessity of having water at my side every minute of the day. THAT made me angry. I kept saying, “what if I was a diabetic? What if I needed to have medication with me?” It made me angry that I couldn’t take anything in there with me, especially when I don’t have pockets on me.

            Oh, and then when we gave our things to the people behind the desk, there’s a sign that says, “We aren’t responsible for your things”. I found that funny because, um, if you’re taking my stuff, you’re responsible for it. If I lose money or anything else while it’s in your lockers, it can’t be my responsibility! Of course, we took all our money with us anyway.

            Then we had to wait a bit before actually being able to go into the theater. The theater was pretty much the same as in America, but they play commercials instead of previews. The movie was awesome, and we really liked it, so that was a good thing!

            After the movie, we decided to get food at McDonalds. Frustration #6: I had no idea what McDonalds in Ecuador tasted like, so I had no idea what they put on just a hamburger. I had to ask Santiago and try to explain what I wanted. However, there was a very pleasant difference: the employees at McDonalds were extremely nice. All of them seemed very kind, which was a big difference from New Jersey McDonalds.

            I got, of course, a cheeseburger and fries, which were extremely delicious. Here is another difference that I’m not sure if I mentioned: people here love mayonnaise. Santiago put mayonnaise on his chicken sandwich, and he dipped his fries in it. Granted, I am not against mayonnaise. In fact, I like mayonnaise on my ham and cheese sandwiches. Yet I find it strange to eat it with pretty much anything else! I joked and told Santiago that I thought he would eat mayonnaise just by itself.

            After eating, we went to Super Maxi, which is the big supermarket in the mall. We bought pancake mix, syrup, bread, jelly, and crackers. I keep realizing that there’s so much that I don’t understand here, like they leave their empty grocery carts in line and even their food on the tables because the people who work there just take it. To me, it’s strange because we always have to put our carts back at the store and throw out our trash after we eat.

            Once we were finished, we went to take the bus back to CalaCali. Frustration #7: they packed so many people on that bus that in order to hold on, I was practically grabbing someone else’s butt. That sounds funny, but it really wasn’t funny when I couldn’t breathe! Having so many people in such a tiny space is an extremely uncomfortable thing for me. Some of you guys are used to that, but I’m certainly not! It makes me uncomfortable to push and shove through people, and I feel rude when I do so. It was extremely hot, and I wanted my water, yet we couldn’t move to get it until finally two people got up so we could sit down. I feel like every time I’m on a crowded bus, after a while, God always provides seats for us so I can actually breathe!

            When we got to Santiago’s house, we hung out for a bit until going to his church service. The songs were beautiful, as always, and I was excited to hear Santiago’s brother, Wilmar, give the message. However, here is frustration #8: I couldn’t understand a word of it. Not only could I not understand the message, but my throat started to feel terrible, and I had no more water left. I, again, felt dizzy and tired. I tried my best to understand, but I couldn’t. It was too fast, and I was too tired. When I got back last night, after an Ibuprofen, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

            This morning I woke up to the kids playing. As I got my Fruit Loops for breakfast this morning, I had company. Rebeca watched me the whole time, sometimes saying a messy sentence (‘kid-speak’) to me which I didn’t understand. After eating those, I made myself peanut butter and jelly cracker sandwiches and asked her if she wanted one. So then we sat silently, eating PB&J crackers.

            Afterwards I went into their room to watch them play for a bit before going into my own room to do devotions. As I was reading and writing, Rebeca frequently came into my room, said something, and then walked back out. She always calls my name now. “Allie? Allie? Allie!” When I answer she just says, “hola!” Before she was afraid to just look at me, but now she likes to get my attention. If you ask me, I think she likes the gringa. =)

            She also came in a little while ago to ask me if I wanted ice cream. When I asked where, she brought me outside, where she asked her dad to buy ice cream. After a little while, he came back with ice cream, and Rebeca brought me a “Topsy Choc” (really good) ice cream bar to my room.

Well, as you can see, all of those little frustrations of my Friday were seemingly stupid and no big deal, but to a girl like me, they build and blow up into one big frustrating day. Even in those moments, I asked Santiago to be patient with me because I’m “having a moment”. If those things happened in America, no doubt I would get upset. However, when I’m surrounded by completely unfamiliar territory, I’m that much more uncomfortable and vulnerable. I’m learning to be able to just remember, “It’s another experience” whenever I’m having one of those moments. I’m trying to remember that even the bad experiences and the frustrations are part of my new life here in Ecuador.

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