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Last weekend, I got a little too close to the political protests of a Third World country. Ecuadorans are known for influencing their government without using violence, but it still is scary to be a foreigner trapped by protesters.

My wife, Tesha, and I had three friends visiting Ecuador, so we decided to rent a car and travel through the Amazon jungle and then to the coast. Our beach destination was Montañita, a small surfing town in southern Ecuador.

After staying a few nights in the jungle, then driving all day toward the coast, we ran into a road block about an hour from Montañita. The highway was blocked by a group of police officers who only would tell us the area of Ecuador where we were heading was blocked because of a “big problem.”

Determined to get to our surfing town, we found an alternate route that would cut off part of the highway and put us back on the road near Montañita. Our side route ended up being a one-lane dirt road that connected several tiny farming and ranching communities and was probably not under the description of roads suitable for our Kia Rio.

We were driving through pueblos of shacks made up of friendly people who did not own any cars to drive on the small “road” and who had never seen a foreigner. I think we became the talk of many towns as we constantly had to stop to try to ask if we still were going the right way. The people we met apparently had no idea they were so close to the beach.

Long story short, after about four hours of rocking through terrain that switched back and forth between dessert and tropical forest, we were thrilled to arrive at the main road only several miles south of Montañita. Our excited arrival, however, was put to a sudden stop when we came to a protest in the road.

Locals had blocked the road with tires, poles and junk which they had set on fire, and it was clear we were not getting through. We felt like we had almost completed the hardest race of our lives and then broken a leg just before the finish line. Another long story short, our determination led us essentially to sneak around the protest through some friendly neighbors’ farms on another tiny road that looked more like the track for the Millennium Force roller coaster at Cedar Point.

Finally, we arrived in Montañita and it was even better than we had hoped for. Unfortunately, one of the girls in our group had to get to the airport the next day, so Matt, the other guy in our group, and I left early the next morning to bring her to a town where she could catch a bus to the airport.

Leaving Montañita was our mistake.

At 6:30 on a gray, misty morning with a temperature that was neither warm nor cool, we set out in our rental car. This morning’s destination was a city called Jipijapa (that’s right, “hippy-hoppa”), a city north of Montañita that we picked because we were told there would be no road blocks. But 15 minutes into our ride, we came upon another road block.

We were done taking risky roads with our Kia, especially because of the misty rain, so I was ready to turn back and tell our friend she would just have to wait to fly out. We decided to talk to the protesters first. Fortunately for her, since it was so early in the morning, and the passionate rioters still were recovering from previous night’s riot festivities, we were able to bribe the protesters to let us through for $2. They moved a couple of tires out of the way and kindly let us pass.

Now I started getting worried. We were one of the only cars on the eerie road — not a good thing to be if you are a foreigner in an area where the police had apparently decided to look the other way. On top of that, we had just enough gas to get us to the next big town that still was half an hour away. We knew if we came across another roadblock and were not able to bribe our way through, we’d be trapped on a deserted road with no cell phone reception or contact with people who did not care to rob us.

Luckily, we made it to Jipijapa with no more road blocks.

Knowing we were likely to have more problems getting back through the road block, Matt and I prepared ourselves to be robbed. We left just enough in our wallets so it would make a thief content, while hiding the rest around the car and in our socks. Cameras and anything in the car that looked like it might be worth something were hidden where it would take a good search to find them. We picked one another’s brains with possible scenarios, trying to stay optimistic while being realistic.

With the music off, no more talking, and my hands shaking on the steering wheel, we slowly approached the protest. We pulled onto the side of the road, a safe distance away from the protest, to park the car and analyze our situation. Our fears were accurate. The riot had grown and there now were at least 60 men. Most of the junk in the road was on fire and, as we walked closer to the blockade, a large mob started cheering as they proudly laid a telephone pole across a bridge. It was about 10 o’clock and the place already reeked of alcohol. The only woman in site was the one who owned the local convenience store and was apparently supplying the protesters with all of their booze.

I started talking to some locals, who seemed only to be watching the protest. I explained to them my wife was in Montañita and I was just trying to return. They showed me a small, muddy road, only partly blocked by the protest, which is used to bring boats down to the beach.

I slid down the muddy path in my sandals to check out the beach. Because the tide was all the way out, we’d be able to drive on the hard sand about a quarter mile down the beach and then go back up another boat-loading road to get back to the main road. It was surprisingly feasible. For $5, the locals would move a tire and a few big rocks out of the way for our small car to sneak through.

In the part of our minds that keeps us in check by asking, “Don’t you think this is a bad idea,” we knew essentially sneaking around a protest might not be very smart. But by now we felt pretty desperate. The other girls in our group would start worrying about us soon and we had no way of contacting them. And swimming to Montañita sounded a bit too exhausting. So we decided to go for it.

The locals casually parted the right side of the blockade and we inched forward, keeping a watch on all sides of the car to make sure we weren’t driving into a trap in which we would be forced to contribute our car to the fiery roadblock.

The mob seemed to be paying more attention to their newly placed telephone poll, but it only took one guy to catch a glimpse of us and say something along the lines of, “Hey, is that bright orange car trying to sneak through our protest?” All of a sudden all eyes were on us.

The mob, led by a few guys waving burning sticks and glass bottles, started a swift, amoeba-like movement toward the car. With all of the protesters in the area yelling various things at us, which we imagine were unfriendly things, I kicked the car into reverse and started our awkwardly slow getaway. Matt kept an eye on the front of our car, while I maneuvered through bystanders behind the car.

Luckily, the mob didn’t seem too interested once we showed we were leaving and we were able to quickly turn the car around and get out of there.

We drove away defeated. Our new goal was to at least make contact with the girls, and we couldn’t figure out any way to do that besides somehow getting to Montañita. The girls expected us to be back two hours ago, and we figured they’d start panicking soon.

Parking the car, walking around the protest, and hitchhiking to Montañita was out because we couldn’t risk leaving our rental car in a protest area. Our next option was to pick one of the many fishing villages to the north and try to rent a boat to take us to Montañita.

The town we chose is called Salango. Although we had never been to Salango, I felt comfortably familiar with it because of a book I read, “The Voyage of the Manteño,” about an American’s re-creation of an ancient balsa raft journey from Salango, Ecuador, to central Mexico.

From the book's description, we’d be able to find friendly people, anxious to help with anything concerning the sea. Sure enough, that’s what we found.

Alejandro, a man with a boating company, would rent us a boat we could take on an hour ride to Montañita. Once we got near the surf of Montañita, we’d anchor the boat outside of the waves’ break zone and I’d swim to shore and find the girls. We hadn’t decided whether we’d bring the girls and our bags with us and leave Montañita, or just let them know that we hadn’t been kidnapped.

Before we left for our sea voyage, we decided to eat lunch at a restaurant owned by Alejandro’s brother. Over lunch, I brought up the book and the conversation became fascinating. The brothers wore proud looks on their faces as they described the day when they helped the author push the 60-foot balsa raft from the sand, past the surf. One of their family members was even one of the main characters who sailed on the raft. As they talked, the story — which I had read on the beaches of Malibu, Calif., to feel more in the setting — came to life in its real beach town.

Then, in our one moment of luck all day, my cell phone rang. We picked up just enough reception to receive a call from Tesha, let her know we were OK, and decide they would stay in Montañita and we’d stay in Salango for however long until the protest was over. We hung out for the afternoon, making friends, sharing stories and deciding maybe that area of Ecuador isn’t so bad after all.

Our new plan was to return to the road block around midnight that night, when, with some luck, there would be few enough protesters for us to bribe our way back through. If there still was a large crowd, we’d stay the night in Salango. We decided to check out the road block about an hour before sunset to see whether things were getting better or worse. So, with some advice from our new friends and a little bit of praying, we nervously drove back to the protest zone.

Our dramatic story suddenly lost its drama. As we drove past the area of the block, there was hardly even a sign of a riot beside the burn marks in the road and four bitter, old men sitting on the bridge. I really thought I was dreaming and refused to give Matt a we-made-it high-five for the next 15 minutes, until we were parked in Montañita.

We parked our car, changed into our bathing suits and sprinted into the ocean where the girls were surfing. After a romantic kiss in the waves, I borrowed Tesha’s board and caught a victory wave.

As I paddled out for a second wave, I got stung by a jellyfish all over my shoulder and neck. After all we’d been through, a sting was not going to be enough to put a stop to surfing the last minutes of the end of our stressful day.

I think if that jellyfish knew all I’d been through that day, he wouldn’t have stung me.

-Pete

There are very few moments in our lives that we get to see something come full circle. I know there are times when I wonder if I'm making any sort of impact with the orphans who we work with every day. There are some good deeds of which we never get to see the outcome, but recently I’ve experienced a full-circle-story firsthand.

This story begins in 1956 when five missionaries, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming and Roger Youderian, set out to the jungles of Ecuador to teach the gospel to a tribe called the Waorani, also known as the Aucas. Anthropologists describe the Waorani as the most violent tribe in all of history. Three out of four of the males died from being speared and almost none of them lived past their forties. This is due to their tendencies to not only kill other tribes in the region but within their own groups as well. The Waorani were also known to kill any foreigner who set foot in their territories.

Becoming some of the most famous martyrs of the 20th century, the missionaries were speared to death by the Waorani after making contact with them. Amazingly, however, a wife and a sister of the five men decided to continue the project and returned to the Waoranis. This effort was primarily carried out by Rachel Saint, the sister of Nate Saint, and Elizabeth Elliot, Jim’s wife, who went to live with the Waorani.

In 1969, a Polio epidemic broke out among two enemy Waorani groups who were visiting Rachel Saint and her Waorani group while she was still living among them on the Twaeno River. The situation became precarious because the two enemy groups had settled very near each other and Rachel’s group and could not move because of the sick. Rachel knew they needed medical attention, but was afraid to allow any outsider to come in to help due to the growing tensions between the three factions. However, after 12 people died of polio, a doctor named Wally Swanson (or Dr. Wally) decided to come in to help, against Rachel’s warnings. He was the first non-native male who was not speared as a result of meeting and working with the Waorani. Dr. Wally was even able to convince the Waorani to allow him to airlift the really sick natives to his mission’s Amazon hospital in the village of Shell, a feat thought to be impossible. The doctors and medical teams slowly gained the trust of the Waorani over time when the Waorani began to understand that the medical care they received was helping them to get better. What could have been a disastrous massacre between three warring groups ended up saving all of them through the care and determination of medical teams who came to help. From that point, after the polio outbreak was over, the Waorani killings drastically dropped. The generation of Waorani that survived the Polio epidemic became the first generation to live long enough to see their grandchildren, something no Waorani in history had been able to do.

This story relates back to Pete and me because during our time here we have become friends with Dr. Wally. We house-sat for him during our first three months here, and since his return we have occasionally shared meals together. Over dinner last Tuesday, we heard Dr. Wally recount this story. There was a touch of pride in his voice as he explained how he felt so privileged to have been the doctor during this time. Dr. Wally now is 80 years old and is still sharp and always looking to help people.

The story for us ends with For His Children, the orphanage where we work. After Rachel Saint left the Waorani in 1994, she lived the remainder of her days in Quito. Dr. Wally also moved to Quito after about 30 years in the jungle. They ended up living right next door to each other on a 4 acre shared property. Rachel Saint's nephew, Steve Saint, who worked with the Waorani as well, built both of the houses. When our orphanage directors were looking for a permanent residence, they met Rachel, who was then very old. Rachel was trying to sell her place and our directors were interested in it, but it was well out of their budget. They were just about to purchase another place, when Rachel called them and said she and Steve Saint had decided to sell the property to the orphanage directors for the low price that they could afford. She told them that it was her wish to keep the property with people who would continue to spread God’s love.

Now that we have moved out of Dr. Wally's house, we are staying about 200 feet away in the orphanage's Group House where Rachel once lived. It is incredible to think that we are connected to so much history. We also had an opportunity to go to the jungle recently, where we stayed only 10 miles from where those 5 men were killed. The area is now very peaceful, but it was somewhat unsettling to ponder on the events that had occurred 60 years ago in that jungle.

If you would like more information on these stories, there are several books written on it, including Elizabeth Elliot's "Through the Gates of Splendor," which describes her experiences. There was also a movie made by last year called, "The End of the Spear," which is not entirely factual but presents a good picture of the time. In the movie, they even mention Dr. Wally.

Tesha

Tesha and I have increased the danger color level for scorpions in our house from Yellow to Red-Orange. We've found 3 in the past 3 days. There are tons of different species of scorpions and they have a lifespan of 4 - 25 years. It makes me wonder how long they've been living under our refridgerator.
-Pete

In the six months that we’ve spent in Ecuador so far, every day we’ve noticed differences between the US and Ecuador. Since we don’t have time to write articles on every little difference, and since you probably won’t find these in a history book, we decided to write an article listing some of the tidbit facts about Ecuador.

We live about 5 miles south of the Equator, just into the Southern Hemisphere. On the Equator you can actually balance an egg. A few feet to the north of the Equator water flushes one way (clockwise). A few feet to the south of the Equator water from the same toilet flushes the other way (counterclockwise). Exactly on the Equator the water goes straight down. Seriously.

Because the altitude of Quito, the capital city where we live, is about 9,300 feet, there are not many insects here. I think they have trouble surviving in the thin air. Instead, as something needs to pollinate all the flowers, there are tons of hummingbirds and butterflies. The hummingbirds here are about 2 times larger than the ones in The States. One type of hummingbird that we see in our backyard has a tail that is about 8 inches long (4 times the size of its body).

Ecuador is a pretty small country in size (about the size of Ohio), but it varies as greatly as any country in its terrain. You can start on the Pacific coast of Ecuador, drive three hours inland (east) and be at a mountain that reaches 20,000 feet. Traveling another three hours east gets you to the Amazon jungle.

In Ecuador, Caucasians (gringos), not Hispanics or Blacks, are considered colored (colorado), because of the way our cheeks get colored red in the sun.

Forty-seven percent of the work force in Ecuador is “subempleado” - I think we call it “underemployment” in English. This means that almost half of the work force is in “under-the-table jobs,” such as selling ice-cream on the street, working unofficial labor jobs in maintenance and other fields, selling crafts or pirated DVDs on buses, etc... Whenever we take a bus ride, we have the option to buy something from a vendor who boards the bus, gives a quick sales pitch, checks to see if anyone wants to buy something, and then moves on to another bus. We’ve been offered roasted peanuts, cough drops, ice-cream, yogurt, pirated DVDs and CDs, gum, soda, Spider-Man masks, newspapers, toothbrushes, shoe insoles, candy and even soup. Since minimum wage is only about $250 per month, a lot of Ecuadorians are likely to make more money working unofficial jobs. The negative is that many workers and their families end up without the benefits that come with salary jobs, such as healthcare. Another result of the “underemployment” is a 12 percent sales tax.

Ecuador uses the US dollar. They gave up their “sucre” in 2000 to take up the US dollar to help with their economy and inflation. Politicians in the country are divided between those who are ready to bring back the “sucre” and show that their economy can run without the help of other countries, and those who want the stability and reliability of the US dollar.

It’s pretty common here to see way more people in a car than seatbelts. We’ve seen up to 13 people in the bed of a pickup truck. I think Britney Spears recently got in trouble in the US for driving with her kid on her lap. In the US, Britney could lose her children over something like that. Sadly, in Ecuador, it’s normal for a child to sit (sometimes stand) in the front seat on the lap of the driver or passenger. We’ve even seen babies on motorcycles.

Parking in Ecuador has its differences. Sidewalks make good parking spots. It’s not permitted by law, but you can park on most sidewalks that seem fitting to you. In the center of town, where parking laws are more enforced, they don’t use parking meters, but they do have some system: If you don’t already have a parking card in your car, you have to find a guy, who will be walking around on the sidewalk, somewhere, and buy a parking card from him. You put the parking card in your window and write in the time that you were there. Being a country that suffers greatly from corruption, you can imagine how honest people are when filling out their own parking cards. Tesha recently got back from Portland, Oregon for a friend’s wedding. In Portland, you use your credit card for the parking meters. I think Ecuador has awhile before they’ll be using those meters.

Ecuadorians greet with a kiss on the cheek. Sometimes they greet with a kiss the very first time they meet; other times they shake hands to meet and then kiss to greet once they know each other. It took a little while to get used to this, and to figure out when to shake hands and when to kiss. Still, early one morning, while I (Pete) was half asleep, I walked outside and ran into a female volunteer I know. At first I was really thrown off when she kept bringing her face closer and closer, but then I remembered that I was in Ecuador.
Another thing about greeting in Ecuador is that they individually greet every person in the room. In the US, when we show up at work, we give one general “Good morning” that goes out to everyone. Here a person will go around the room and greet up to 20 people individually. Even when we meet with Tesha’s running group on Saturday mornings, when people show up, they will go around to each of the 10 or so people who are stretching to give a kiss or shake hands and say “Buenos dias” to each person.”

It is common to see llamas in Ecuador, especially in the countryside. We have a llama on the orphanage property. It takes care of the lawn mowing. One of the children named it Luisa Daniela, a rather elegant name for a llama.
-Pete

Tesha and I made a video of the kids of For His Children. You can see the video at:

http://youtube.com/pgrangaard
or
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1244099250424732410&hl=en

Let us know what you think.
-Pete

"I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight."
Percy Shelley

In our last three months in Ecuador we have endured cold showers, seven hour bus rides through the jungle without air conditioning, kids throwing up on us, and the Ecuadorian government refusing to let us become legal. However, these things seem trivial when compared to something I like to call the "warm fuzzies." The warm fuzzies are little reminders of why we are here, and they have made our time here worth while. The first time when one of the kids, Angel, cupped his grubby little hands to my face and said, "Te quiero Tesha," or "I love you, Tesha," I thought my heart would burst. That was only the beginning.

The warm fuzzies come in different shapes and sizes but they're mainly due to kids that we work with. Every morning when we arrive at the orphanage there is one little boy named Fabian who runs up to me as fast as his little two-year-old legs can carry him. While he is running, his chubby face spreads widely in a smile and he yells, "Tesha, Tesha!" as he runs. I scoop him up in my arms and he hugs me tightly. It is one of the best feelings to be loved by a child.

Another time that's sure to give me the fuzzies is when we come in the evenings for music. As part of our program at the orphanage, Pete and I come two to three times a week to teach and sing songs with the kids. We sing in both English and Spanish, and we've been amazed at how fast they learn! My favorite song to sing at music time is "Old McDonald" because the kids love to choose the wildest animals for Mr. McDonald's farm. Inwardly I laugh as together 15 toddlers and I sing "Old McDonald had a tiger" and then we all roar as loudly as we can. Sometimes, after music, when we're tucking the kids into their beds, I hear them drifting off to sleep singing softly, "E-I-E-I-O."

Many times after music, we arrive at our house just as the sun begins to set. Sometimes, Cayambe, the third highest peak in Ecuador at almost 19,000 feet, is just visible through the clouds. This produces a different kind of warm fuzzies which is more of awe for such a majestic mountain. Recently, it was an unusually brisk evening and we could see Cayambe clearly from our balcony. Pete and I took a blanket out to the balcony and watched the sun set turning the mountain beautiful shades of red and purple.

Living in Ecuador with its many inconveniences, causes us to remember that the small trinkets of joy that we get from working with kids or witnessing the beauty in nature are some of the most rewarding experiences in life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said it best when he wrote, "Tell me not, in mournful numbers life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers and things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art; to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul."

Last Saturday Tesha and I got to go to a farm outside Quito with 8 of the orfans between 5 and 10 years of age. Four of the kids who went are special needs kids and the other four are... normal(?), non-special(?), not-needy(?), developmentally [i]a tempo (?)... [i]you can fill in whichever word you think is politically correct. The kids, and Tesha and I had a lot of fun. All of the kids got to ride horses, hold rabbits and guinea pigs, sit on llamas, pet and feed goats, and cluck at chickens, geese and cows. A few of the special needs kids are non-stop energetic, so Tesha and I felt like we were herding most of the day.
My favorite special needs girl is named Tatiana and I enjoy hanging out with her because she is constantly happy, no matter what. She's about 10 years old and she's normally in a different world than everybody else. She can't talk, but she lets you know when she's super excited by screaming and shaking her hands. She also claps for herself after taking a bite of food, or any other time she feels clapping is appropriate. Whenever she sees me, she comes up to me wanting to be picked up and held, if I don't respond, she grabs onto my shoulders and climbs me like someone climbing a coconut tree.
The farm was overwhelmingly exciting for Tatiana since there were so many interesting things; she would often see something new and immediately forget what she was doing. Any time we took our eyes off of her for more than a few seconds we'd end up having to search around the farm for her, normally finding her crashing a birthday party that was being held on the farm.
I think Tatiana doesn't feel much pain because when she falls or does something that should hurt her, she just laughs. I had to take her away from the geese and then the chickens because she kept sticking her finger inside the fence and letting the birds bite her.
She really made me laugh when she was playing with the goats: She started petting the first of three goats and then slapped him in the head. I told her that it wasn't OK to do that and since it seemed like she wouldn't be hitting any more goats, we moved on to pet the next goat. After a couple pets she let out a big laugh, slapped the second goat in the head, and took off running for the third goat. I caught her before she got to the third goat and then she saw a llama and forgot all about the goats.
You can find pictures of the day at the farm on our picture site: http://community.webshots.com/user/peteandtesha
-Pete