Month: August 2008

Breakfast

Lydia, this one’s for you.

Even when I was little and my mom actually made me breakfast, I just wasn’t a big eater in the morning. I’d have a bowl of cereal and a glass of juice and cram it down as fast as I could so I could go play before I had to go to school.

I think it was about the seventh grade when breakfast became a Pop-Tart on the way out the door and definitely in the ninth grade when I just gave up on breakfast all together. In fact, from about Christmas of 2000 until summer of 2007, I might have had breakfast once a week, on Thursdays, and later on Fridays, depending on the day of our Sr. High Bible Study at Rachel’s Place. Even when I came home from Ecuador last year, much as I enjoyed eating breakfast and having coffee with Edla, Holly, Hunter, Julie, and Katie, I was pretty much totally unmotivated to get out of bed more than half an hour before I had to be at church, school, or work.

Maybe it’s just the fact that I’ve been eating pancitos y huevos for three months and I’m used to it, or maybe it’s that I just enjoyed feeling functional before 10:00am. But despite sleeping through my alarm for twelve days straight, I shot out of bed this morning at 7:13 and made breakfast.

It’s the first day of class and I’m motivated, but I think that more than that, it’s the idea of having somewhere to be. I haven’t had to work or go to class or go to meetings or my team or basically anything since the 7th. I had church on the two Sundays in there, but I knew that my mom would wake me up to get in the shower before Colin. This morning it was all me, and not because I’m ecstatic to be heading to COA by any means. I was actually happy about breakfast.

Seriously, Lydia. Just shut up. I know. You win.

Cereal, toast, juice, milk and café con leche (I was too lazy to scramble eggs- give me a break, that’s pretty good). And somehow I still managed to be an hour ahead of schedule to have time to do my quiet time before the rest of my day suddenly happened, and to sit down and write this before I even take off for class (even ahead of schedule, I’ll probably end up late now because of this).

In many ways, breakfast is a lot like God. I want to look forward to prayer time and worship (and lately I tend to a lot more) rather than feeling obligated towards them. And He recharges us and equips us for that to which He sends us much like how fueled I feel for my day thanks to a cup of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

I know it’s a pretty stupid analogy. Really, I do. I’d elaborate on it some more (anyway) if I wasn’t trying to make this a “good student” day and be somewhat on time for my first class. But you can connect the dots however else you’d like. As for me, I hope I go into today (and this school year and coming weeks and months back at work) looking forward to what God has in store for me, and fueled and ready for it.

And I’m going to have to find some mermelada de mora.

Lactic Acid

Yes. I know. It’s lactic acid. 40 BILLION people have told me in the last two days that the chemical that builds up in your muscles that makes them hurt is lactic acid. I said I’d edit the last entry to change it, but I’m just writing this new one instead so that people will see it when it’s imported to facebook and stop telling me. Lactic acid. I got it.

And I mean that in the most appreciative way possible. I love you guys, and thank you.

Residual Effects

When I go running, there’s a loop I do around the neighborhood. From the end of my driveway out the back of Winfield around the Rivershore “circle” and back comes to almost exactly a mile. If you want to add onto that, just tacking on the cul-de-sac on Chancey or coming back through Rivershore Estates and making a big circle can change it up.

This morning was the first time in a long time that I actually did the loop with no walking. Thanks to playing basketball several times a week at 10,000 feet, my legs were giving out far faster than my lungs, probably for the first time in my life.

I set out at a pretty good pace running and breathing in rhythm to David Crowder and paying attention to my breathing just a little bit more than all the obstacles “Winslow Acres” can throw at you (dogs, little girls on bicycles, dogs, oddly placed mailboxes, dogs). I knew when I left that I wouldn’t be able to keep running at the speed I started, and after years of Cross Country and running on my own, I know that that’s a bad way to run. But I wanted to see how far I’d actually get with about a week’s supply of extra red blood cells left.

Tons of things go through my mind when I run. Usually when it’s been this long since I’ve gone, one of them is a prayer that I don’t die. Today, that was replaced by one of the few facts I remember from either of my Ben-Stein-teaching-style Biology instructors. I’m trusting that someone will read this and tell me what the chemical is that builds up in your muscles, but the gist of it is that as your body uses the glucose (I think), it leaves this crap behind, which is what makes your muscles hurt.

About here, you’re probably thinking how ADD I am. It’ll come together.

I spent roughly 2½ months in Ecuador this summer and now I’m back home. I can run a lot harder and a lot longer than I could before because my body can soak up a lot more oxygen right now thanks to adapting to altitude. Is that all? I should hope not.

Right now I’m fresh off the experience and trying to be fruitful as I fun and fight and flight and try not to fit. And there are differences in me, some noticeable to me or to others and some not. Oxygen intake is one. How and where I spend my time is another. And even as much as I want to stop waking up and thinking I’m in Quito now that my trip on-field time is over, I want the experience to continue. (Look, I listened to Partnership orientations a lot).

Just like that stuff that builds up in my leg muscles when I run, there are some painful reminders of where I am/am not and who I am/am not. And maybe I’ll build up my endurance as I keep running at sea level every day, but those extra red blood cells from Quito will fade away, as hopefully will any sense of not having a place here. Ready for it or not, I’m Called to be in Elizabeth City right now, residual (and hopefully more of them lasting) effects of Quito Quest 2008 and all.

Just What I Needed

This morning I went to the early service at First Methodist. After three days Stateside, I was pretty much prepared for the onslaught of old ladies asking me how my “trip” had been. I could, however, already feel myself slipping into laziness and responding that it was “good,” which I have since been making an effort to fix. I’d rather someone “glaze over” than I waste an opportunity to talk about the last three months.

I would say it was a fairly normal service, except that for me, when Mike finished preaching and the service suddenly started to end at 9:20, I looked at my phone like “You can’t be serious.” After three months of hour-long or two-hour-long sermons, even at Gringo church, I was just getting going. And the sermon was on Matthew 15:21-28 when the woman begs for Mercy from Jesus and he ends up admiring her faith. I, of course, took something totally different out of it than was intended or than probably anyone else got, but it was the beginning of a learning experience that lasted all day.

After that I went to play for the “munchkins.” Turned out only three of them were there (though one of them was Christopher Alexander, so I got to meet him). I mostly just talked about Ecuador for the benefit of Dianna) and played a couple songs. Davis and Taylor sang enough to humor me, but I was glad to see them all and in one of the best moods I’ve been in when I headed off to Burger King in my usual avoidance of going to any of the Sunday School classes in which I just don’t fit.

There I got a blatant example of how useful my time in South America has been on simply a surface level. There was a Spanish-speaking couple in line behind me, and the girl at the counter was speaking loud and slow, trying to explain to them what time breakfast ended in a language they didn’t understand and as if they were stupid. I feel like “desayuno por vente minutos mas” is a phrase I would have been able to spit out in April, but actually have the confidence to do so now (at least without someone fluent in both languages standing around and able to tell me how idiotic I sound).

Having left FUMC and having heard the sermon already, I decided to go to the 11:00 service at First Baptist. I’d already made up my mind to go to church later anyway because I am so often lazy and only go to a service if I am a part of it: playing guitar or some other instrument, preaching, running the sound system, etc. In the Methodist church all the vows always include our support through “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service.” I’ve been nailing the last two for quite a while, and I wanted to go to a worship service and worship and for once through the rest.

Granted I got there and Billy commandeered me to play guitar for a hymn, but I didn’t plug in and most people probably couldn’t hear me, which was fine. And, maybe because I was simply aware of it this morning, or maybe because God was actually directly teaching me something, I just kept getting slammed all service long.

Steve’s Invocation was a thank-you to God for interrupting us, and the opening hymn was “The Solid Rock,” something to which I’ve absolutely had to cling for the last half a week (or summer, for that matter). The choir’s anthem was “Give Me Jesus,” and though I like the Jeremy Camp version better, the words are the same and seriously… after over three days Stateside I’d like a T-shirt that says “You can have all this world. Give Me Jesus.”

But wait, there’s more. Mason’s sermon, “Behind the Scenes” just kept hitting me too. It was about faith, and it ended with us singing my absolutele favorite hymn of all time, “It Is Well With My Soul.”

The rest of the day, I got to hang out with Megan and get ice cream, I went to the recorder ensemble at FBC (there’s a method to my madness, just wait), praise band/the Celebration! service at FBC (another message on faith and the opportunity to rock out), and Ruby Tuesday’s and the Stevens’ house with most of the Christ Episcopal Ecuador Team to play the cup game and look at photos.

I’m not necessarily glad to not be in Ecuador at this point, but rather than feeling stuck in North Carolina now, I feel home.

D-O-N Done

I got home last night and I was just D-O-N Done. Over the course of the day, I said good-bye way too many times. In fact, I described my day yesterday as saying good-bye, sitting, good-bye, sitting, good-bye, and sitting.

In the airport in Miami, we got to see Teddy and sort of get the news that Emily hadn’t made it because her visa expired as Teddy mouthed and motioned through the inch-thick soundproof glass forcing him to go the long way around through customs instead of to where we could actually speak to him at the gate. Then Bryan left us to head for his short hop to Tampa, and on the thirteenth good-bye of the day, I just about lost it.

It was really good to see my mom in Raleigh and to finally say “Hello.” I talked her into letting me drive home so I would have something to do. I was just in a weird mood and needed to accomplish something rather than sitting for another three hours and thinking about how much I just don’t want to be here.

Not that I’m in just this huge “Fight” mode or have a bad attitude or hate the States or anything. But I’ve been saying for a week that I wasn’t ready to go, and I definitely have not had enough down time yet to be feeling ready to process my experience with anyone here. Even in the airport yesterday afternoon, we really didn’t even talk about anything meaningful about the last 3 months or the next few days, and just enjoyed our Dr. Peppers for a few more minutes of relative silence in the appreciative presence of friends who “got it.”

I got to see Billy and Lydia last night, and when I drove MY car (emphasis as a reminder to my brother) home I called Matt Smith at the house. I’ve been calling the States from that phone all summer, but it’s still a strange sensation that I can dial my cell phone and someone in Ecuador picks up. That was when I got the full story on Emily being stuck and just the last bit of Matt and Lane being in South America and Matt’s thoughts on that and me getting to say out loud how totally weird it is to be home.

I also had a chance to go over to Mike’s house and talk to Mike and Laura and Mrs. Dwan, which was good, but I was so shot at that point from antihistamine and lack of sleep that it didn’t last long.

This morning I feel rested, but still just weirded out that I’m even here. I can’t wait to call and talk to everyone else as they get home and at least have a sense of understanding and a similar experience. I’m glad Jerry is here, but I feel like he and I still have catching up to do from the fact that we hardly saw each other whenever we had teams on the ground, and I know it’s going to be hard for both of us when we get put on the spot together and people expect us to have one collective experience that is in truth not remotely the same in most places.

Overall, I’m just a little overwhelmed and I’d like to find a rock to hide under at the moment, but I have a really good processing opportunity that I will take advantage of tonight and I have absolutely no obligations right now until school starts.

Last Morning in Quito

This morning I’m up early. I hit the sack about 10 minutes after we came home from dinner last night, and feel much better for it, though I’m still kind of stuffy. But I’m functional enough to complete everything I have to before we head out of Quito this afternoon for final debrief.

It’s weird to be down to our last days this summer. All the teams are gone, most of the other interns have headed out already, and we’re packing up the house today (if anyone else ever gets out of bed).

With that same finishing-out feeling, I even completed the posts that have been sitting around my drafts folder since June. Those would be June 25 about Block 2 and June 16 about getting left in the jungle (those links are mostly for the benefit of people here). I’m done with most of our required reading and our ministry supplies and clothes from the last team (or two teams… whoops) are distributed.

I’m looking forward to seeing people, and to putting some plans into actions when I return home, but I’m not remotely ready to leave.

Perfection

Jerry and I got to go to Emaus this morning for church. Roberto us up and took us pretty close on his own way to Reconciliation. We cabbed it the rest of the way, and I don’t even feel like we got ripped out of our minds. And even if we had, I got to see my Godson for the third time in a week and a half so I wouldn’t have cared.

It’s amazing what changes in a year.

I remember looking out the back window at the lumber yard last year and being told that they hoped to have a new chapel built by the time we came back. I thought to myself “Yeah, right.” I fully expected to be lugging around the first cinder blocks for the beginnings of the walls the next time I was there. I thought I’d be back as a team member, not a host. I thought I’d spend more than a day at Emaus. I thought Coleman, Holly, Katie, Carrie and Hunter would be here. I thought I’d know more Spanish. I thought I’d be done with COA and my first semester at another school.

This morning was full of unexpected events. I’m really just impressed we got to South Quito and back in the first place. And I was blown away when I got there how beautiful the new sanctuary is. Jerry was saying things like “When I got here that window wasn’t there and that wall wasn’t finished…” and I was saying “When I got here it was a pile of sticks.” Something else sweet about it was to be in a “normal” service there. There was a little bit of a farewell for Emily, but otherwise it was normal life at Mision Emaus: music, Eucharist, and Gema running around dancing with Lourdes and Christion.

There is a lot different in me since I was last there as well. I have a piercing again and more facial hair and a tatoo (just kidding Mom!). I don’t say “weak” as much but I’ve picked phrases like “wazz, “droppin’ trou” and “whatev.” But aside from the obvious, I realized how much a year can affect you. I was blown away thinking about who I was when I stepped off the plane for the first time in South America.

People I wouldn’t have missed last year have been on my mind constantly, and there are people I wished I could call last time around that I (somewhat sadly) haven’t gotten or taken the chance to even facebook since May. I play the guitar a lot better, and for a different reason. I appreciate my friendships with the guys, and with only two notable exceptions, tend to hang out with (and want to hang out with) them (when I’m around) more than the girls (which is totally different for me, even having had the B.R.O.s, and which I think goes back to Chet’s monologue on parejas).

Insert semi-sincere apology for all the parenthetical phrases in the above paragraph.

A full list would take up way too much space here, but suffice it to say, in a very Weslyan way (all the Methodist pastors/Duke graduates reading this can be proud of me), that I hope that that Perfection continues in such an obvious way.

In other news, I think I’m coming down with a cold. I’m going to go take a nap now.

Sweet Taxi Ride

Our final team is gone and I have tons of thoughts on that topic. Maybe you’ll get them tomorrow. But first I just have to tell a story.

We headed over to the Paynes’ house tonight to watch a movie. The crowd ended up being Bryan, Dana, Danielle, Danny, Jerry, Lane, Nicole, and Teddy. I had come straight from the airport with all my stuff, not having been home all day. “Stuff” included my guitar. We watched “What Lies Beneath” (the girls weren’t present for the related voting process and I was apparently not paying attention while it took place) and finished up around midnight. Then the fun began.

We called a taxi from the house. Here’s a couple of relevant facts about taxis:

1. No more than four people can ride in a taxi.
2. The charge more if you call them somewhere.
3. You can expect to pay more if it’s after nine, and more if it’s after eleven.
4. You can tend to expect to pay more if you have a bunch of stuff in the trunk.
5. You are going to get ripped if the driver doesn’t have a meter.
6. It’s not surprising to pay more if you’re a gringo.

Therefore, six gringos walking out of a house at midnight with a guitar do not want to see one hatchback taxi pull up. We saw one hatchback taxi pull up. With no meter.

I cannot believe the guy even let us in the taxi, much less helped me put the guitar in the “trunk.” The seating arrangement ended up being Teddy in the front with Dana, Danielle, Nicole and Jerry arranged driver to passenger side in the back with me originally basically sitting in Nicole’s lap, and ending up more or less laying on Dana. You can imagine the conversation.

We dropped Danielle off first and the driver turned to Teddy and asked for money. When we all sort of stared at him he asked if all were getting off here. “Solo uno.” The driver just laughed and headed back for Granda Centeno. By the fourth and final stop of the back-and-forth ride, we’d run up a bill of $5.00, the third highest taxi bill I’ve been a part of causing in this country, and although a couple people probably thought that was high, it beats the heck out of the $8.00 trip from the bus station or the $11.00 return trip from Metro Cafe. The guy was so cool and didn’t rip us out of any more than we expected.

All told, it was a fun night of squeezed bodies, heads between legs, worked abs, and a possible question mark on somebody’s team finances. There should be more taxis in the world.