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| “If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” - Sir Isaac Newton |
The Johns Hopkins University course ended on January 27th. I saw the last student off (she was vomiting and recovering from a dislocated shoulder) at 4am in the airport, then went back to the hostel and slept a long time.
The Summit Adventure semester program showed up on the 29th and I began helping facilitate their time in Quito, sitting in on classes, helping them get around the city, and just hanging out with them. There are only two students in the program right now, which is obviously not financially ideal, but I relate better to people individually so I have enjoyed working with them more than with a large group.
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| Hanging out (literally) with ISAS in the gondola up to Rucu's ridge |
Bryce and I are trading off days working with the ISAS students. When they went to hike to Rucu Pinchincha, I tagged along and climbed the ridge on my own. The alone time and exercise was a breath of fresh air for me.
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| Fresh air near the Summit of Rucu (15,000ish feet) |
The next week, I went with the ISAS students to the Happiness Foundation in Conocoto, Ecuador. We stayed there five days, Kelli (ISAS Coordinator) and I staying at the orphanage, and the ISAS students living with Ecuadorian families. We all took Spanish lessons every day and had some time to talk as a group about the students’ experiences. It seems clear to me that God was working in the homes of the Ecuadorian families. Though it may sound hyper-spiritual and I find myself skeptical of such situations, God impressed on one of the students to share certain scriptures and thoughts with one of the families. As she shared with them, they started crying, saying those things pertained exactly to what they had been dealing with and praying about for months. They said they were praying for God to speak to them about those things and were beginning to lose hope. So that’s pretty cool. It’s nice to be able to see God moving a clear-cut way.
After the Happiness foundation, I was not scheduled to work, but I tagged along with ISAS to Illiniza Norte and had my own adventure on the mountain. I had some nausea and a headache when I got down, but it went away after dinner. The next day, after sleeping in the refugio (hut/refuge), I helped get the students nearly to the summit (“nearly” due to time constraints) and back down.
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| Alone Time on Iliniza Norte |
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| Group time on Iliniza Norte |
The day after we returned from Illiniza Norte, I caught a cab to Conocoto and spent 5 more days at the Happiness Foundation. I finished the first draft of a short story there and took a few more hours of Spanish class. I learned the most Spanish, however, from washing dishes with Cecilia, Bill’s wife. Bill was the director of the orphanage for many years. He shared stories with me about his past and I took notes on one of them, hoping to use them as the basis of a future story.
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| Bill Davis (in his favorite work shirt) |
When I returned from Conocoto, I met up with the ISAS students again and traveled to Banos—a quaint village situated directly beneath Ecuador’s most active volcano, Tungurahua. The students had free time there, to work on school work, explore, and enjoy the natural hot springs which give the town its name (“Banos” can mean “baths” as well as “bathrooms”). However, one of the students, Bekah, is not one for sedentary activities and wanted to go on a “beast hike”. This we did—up the main ridge of Tungurahua to the dilapidated and abandoned refugio. Most of the climbing-based tourism on Tungurahua has ceased since the volcano’s recent eruptions, thus the hut has not been maintained. The roof was broken in places, moldy food was strewn about, the walls were patched with clothing and woven mats, and a shattered plaque memorializing an Israeli climber lay shattered on the ground.
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| Dilapidated Refugio on Tungurahua |
Just getting to the hut was the interesting part, however. We started at 6,100 feet and climbed to 12,500 in about 4.5 hours. Most of the trail was steep, muddy, and parts of it were tunnels of vegetation. We passed llamas and cows and fields of onions or blackberries before we got into the cloud forest that drenched us with condensation. We could see fields of hardened lava that had poured down through the forest and we talked with a woman who had a bucket of stones on her counter. She said they crashed through her roof during the eruptions. She laughed a lot and lamented the loss of business since climbing the volcano became unpopular (for good reason).
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| Sweating like crazy on Tungurahua |
When Tom, Summit’s executive director, arrived to teach classes for the ISAS program, Bryce and I were no longer needed and caught a 4 hour bus ride back to Quito. I had stuff-sack containing books and a water bottle tied to the seat in front of me and resting between my feet. At one point during the ride I felt the bag being tugged, so I pulled it up to discover it had been sliced open with a razor. Nothing was stolen but I was upset with the chubby, middle-aged man behind me who had obviously tried to rob me. I didn’t know what else to do besides give him my best dirty looks and contemplate talking to the driver about it. Nothing was actually stolen, my Spanish is not great, and I couldn’t prove it was him, so I don’t think anything could have been done. So I just sat there questioning whether passivity was the best course of (in)action, and I prayed for God to bless him. I had just finished patching the bag after Bryce sliced it open with his ice axe on a climb the week before, so I wasn’t too concerned about it. I’ll patch it again. Still, it’s sad to be brushed by even such a trivial amount of disregard for other humans.
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| Seam grip saves the day again. Thanks Auddy. |
My friends and coworkers, April and Steven, showed up the next week and we have begun planning for the next course with Waynesburg College. Pepperdine University is also down here right now but their course is being led by other instructors and they are living on the floor below us. It has been nice to have a group to sit down with and eat dinner. My time down here has been an ebb and flow of solitude and crowdedness. My favorite medium has been a day alone in the mountains followed by an evening of cooking and laughter in a hut, especially when snow is falling outside the window.
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| Iliniza Norte |
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| Iliniza Sur and Iliniza Norte from a nearby town |
I'm praying for many of you and hope you'll pray us down here too. I guess the best thing you could ask for is for God to use me however he wants. Thanks a ton.
ben
