Me Encanta. Me Encanta todo Eso

"Me encanta. Me encanta todo eso." This means, "I love it. I love all of this."

As I sat in the Terminal Terrestre, I came to a realization over a double quarter pounder with cheese. I came to the terminal with an errand to run: I needed to buy pupitos for my guitar, which is necessary given the scope of my work. After this errand, I wandered the terminal and found the buses that went between provinces, so I jotted down some information. Finally, I stopped for a bite to eat.

In the terminal, there aren´t cane houses, heat from the sun, water barrels, the sound of roosters and water trucks, babies and families, sounds that I´ve grown accustomed to. Only the sounds of shuffling feet, private conversations, and the exchange of money. As I sat over my burger, I looked at the TV and saw "American Gladiators" flashing in front of one Ecuadorian man, alone, sipping a McDonald´s cup, seemingly mesmerized.

I suddenly became aware of what I was doing in the terminal and what everyone else was doing as well: I was being from the United States, or as we say in the US, being "American." I was eating a doube quarter pounder with Cheese, watching television, and sitting. I was consuming goods physically and monetarily, and it felt normal. My discomfort with this idea then lead me to buy a chocolate bar, a I ate half of it before I caught myself.

It seems that this is what being American is, and what we´re trained to do in the US is consume, sit, and allow the world to watch us. The show was translated so people could understand it, but I´ve never needed that. Everything is given to me in my language, and has been for 22 years.

People want to be American and as I walked from the McDonald´s with my chocolate bar, I realized that I was, too, because consuming, walking through a mall and being served is what we are trained to do. From a young age, "americans" are brought to places that have familiar advertising slogans or faces and we want to obtain them. We want to spend and spend because that´s the American way: consume, sit, and allow the world to watch us. We don´t watch the world and understand what we´re doing to them.

As I write this, I sit on a rickety bus. A woman sleeps in front of me as I travel back from this experience to the place I live, a farcry from where I was. I feel sorry for everyone who sees me and thinks that because I´m American I am the world that everyone watches on TV. The truth is I´ve stepped off that stage and joined the crowd. Yet that slogan still brings me back to a world that I once kne, that loves consuming, sitting, and allowing the world to watch by commanding it, a hypnotic and seductive phrase that will always make people want to be American:

"Me ecanta. Me encanta todo eso."

How to Feel in Light of Sacrafices

This is an interesting feeling.

I walked into the cyber late morning and checked my email. I read a few from someone I care about, one that engenders me to keep praying harder and harder. I looked on my facebook and saw pictures from an event I wish I could have been at...marking the second big thing in this person´s life I´ve missed out on by choice. I am missing a lot at home with shows and so many other things I could be doing there that it makes my eyes well up a little and my throat get tight.

Yet, I´m here, living with one paved road and people I don´t know. I have to pay for my internet usage and learn a new language. Every day I take a bus to a place that I am still learning to love, and when I come back home I´m too exhausted to think about all of these things. Now that I´m thinking about them it makes me wonder: How do I feel about what I´ve sacraficed? The sacrafice of comfort, the sacrafice of presence, the sacrafice of language, the sacrafice of all I´ve known for twenty-two years. And I´m here, writing on this blog about it, not knowing how to feel.

My heart breaks and soars when things bad and good happen among the one I hold dear and my friends. Today has been a rush of those emotions, and I can´t talk to anyone about it at the moment because I have trouble expressing myself in Spanish. No one around can talk to me either because I have trouble understanding it. It´s all some sort of emotional roller coaster because I´m apart from the only four other people around who can understand me.

Yet I need to be self sufficient and begin to start dealing with these things alone. I´m not going to be able to have people constantly around me all of my life, no matter how much I desire that. The reality of human life comes from the fact that we will all end up alone at some point in our lives, and I suppose at this moment, at this computer, I kind of feel like that. I miss being able to console my loved ones and cherish the joys that they feel on a daily basis. I miss giving them a call to hang out and shoot the breeze with me. And now I´m living with the choice I´ve made to go without that for the next year.

It´s been three months now and I think I´ve just begun to hit the point of this experience: through sacrafice comes discomfort. Through discomfort comes growth. Through growth comes destruction. Through destruction comes creation. I am constantly desmantled by God, and it looks like God´s doing it again. Slowly, but surely. And when I am desmantled, I hope to understand where God is taking me and what God is doing with me.

Coups aren´t as scary as the history books say they are...

I don´t think as many people heard about this in the states, so for those of you who didn´t, here´s what has happened here in Ecuador. Last thursday, President Raphael Correa was giving a speech in Quito where he announced that he was going to reduce the salary of national police officers so he could help fund some other programs for the poor here in Ecuador. Heckled during his speech, Correa responded by saying, "if you and to kill me, than kill me!" and dramatically undid his tie and buttoned his shirt. As he was walking to his car, someone in the crowd threw tear gas, the president was placed into a gas mask, and taken by car to a hospital to treat an already existing injury to his leg. What nobody realized (apparently...although I don´t quite know how this happened) is that the drivers took him to the hospital for the National Police. So for the day, Correa was sequestered in the hospital, and the National police sequestered him there. That night, a group of Special Forces came into the hospital and freed Correa, bringing him back to the Presidential Palace safely.

There were protests and a few police riots in Guayaquil. In Quito, things were a lot worse, especially among the police. But this instance did some things to my community and me. We were not allowed to go to work friday and stayed mostly indoors saturday and sunday. We spent a whole lot of time together, and I keep thinking to myself how this is the first blessing in desguise out of the whole situation. Through so much unrest, people come together and show each other care and concern. We all were making light of the situation (we wanted to make coup-kies, and other foods that sounded like the word "coup"), but it drew us all together. I felt like I was part of the national consciousness, too: I was a little afriad, and I wanted a peaceful resolution to the situation, which happened yesterday.

The second blessing in disguise is realizing how much the political system here in Ecuador is not too much different than in the United States. It´s ok, scratch your head. Why would I say that? Well, what happened here was classic: those who had been making money and possessed power were having a little bit of their power taken away, which lead to protests and violence because of the power infringement by the president. I think of the situation in the US, and I see a group of people (mainly the TEA party), angry that they are being taxed too much, and therefore, protesting and using violence in their language to try and get that power back. It´s all an ebb and flow: Those who have power will keep power for a while, but when this power is infringed upon (which always happens, inevitably), those who have the power want to keep it, and fight to do so.

I suppose I need to listen to the words of Christ. "In the Kingdom of God, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last." I am priveledged in the world. I have a college education, a car, a house, and a future to think about with a beautiful girlfriend and the world at my finger tips. The people here in Monte Sinai have none of these things, only family, neighbors, and the work of their hands. A neighbor of mine was up all night last night, but can´t go to sleep because he has to keep his store open to make money. I will never have to go through that, but I want to try and begin to understand what that must be like.

We have a conversation ongoing in our house. Can we ever be live in the world of the poor as people from the US? I don´t think that´s possible, but by the simple act of trying to understand it, something is being done: a transferrance of stories so that I can return them to the world and give them the respect they deserve. The news will never report about these people, only those people who have a loud enough voice. Well, I have a loud enough voice, and I´m not afraid to use it.