There are some characteristics we ask our short-term teams to have or adopt. Flexibility is a big one, and one I needed today. And by today, I mean yesterday because it’s technically Monday now, and I’ve been awake since 6:30 Sunday morning.
Our plan today was to go to Emaús and for Ezechias to preach, and then to do his Africa/Rwanda presentation for the kids at the church. In the broadest sense, that did happen. But things started to get off course all the way back at “going to Emaús.”
Pablo (who was translating), Ezechias (who was preaching), and I (who was the only one who knew how to get to Emaús) left the house shortly after seven this morning. That seemed like plenty of time to walk down to the Trole, catch a Trole that wasn’t packed, and ride for about an hour down to Terminal Morán Valverde near the church. It took a while to get on a Trolebús, but eventually we were on our way.
And then suddenly we weren’t.
It turns out the newspaper in Quito was sponsoring a huge race today. So the Trole was only running in the north of town, down to El Ejido, and the roads were closed farther south. So everyone on the Trole had to get off seven stops down the road, before we were even truly out of North Quito.
The three of us walked a ways, and finally managed to catch a taxi. But it turned out it wasn’t just the roads around the Trole stops that were closed, it was every main road we needed to get across the city. Our driver kept saying “I’ll just get on that road and then we’re home free,” (I’m paraphrasing) but we would immediately run into another metal barrier on the road. What should have been a 20 minute, $3 taxi ride took 45-50 minutes and cost us $8. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a large amount of money. But I’ve been taking taxis in this city for 11 years and I’ve never paid $8 for one. Ever.
The other issue with an $8 ride is that instead of reaching for my change purse to pay the driver in Sacagawea coins, I reached for my wallet to pull out a 10. At which point I realized i didn’t have my wallet. After thinking all day, my best guess is that somebody snagged it from my front pocket as all of us had to pile out of the Trole at once. Fortunately I had eel over $8 in coins, because that’s as much a reality in this city as getting your wallet stolen on public transportation. And after twelve years coming to Quito, and as many hours as I’ve spent on the Trole, a total of two wallets taken isn’t really a bad statistic.
We got out at the Puente Guajaló and I showed the guys a sliver of my old neighborhood. They laughed when I told them what funny looks I used to get, because gringos don’t generally go to Guajaló. Part of that may have been the Ecuadorian and the African laughing that even this morning, I was still the only white guy for miles, and yet I was the one who was able to guide them around this section of the city that feels so like home to me.
We arrived at Emaús at almost exactly 9:00. Which is the time painted on the wall outside at which the service starts. Most of the congregation got there around 9:30, and we actually started then. But as they trickled in, and we three greeted everyone, the other guys were surprised when almost everyone greeted me by name. Pablo finally said “man… you know everyone here. Why are you so famous?” Ezechias preached, and it was wonderful. Pablo translated, and did a fantastic job, made even better for me by the fact that I wasn’t the one doing it. I also didn’t have a guitar with me, so for the first time since 2010, I just got to be a part of the service at Emaús from the congregation without needing to lead.
Ezechias was also supposed to do his Rwanda presentation right after the service for the kids who are in the Education=Hope scholarship program. But it turns out it was Día del Niño and there was a children’s program going on outside after the service. So the expectation was actually that he would do his presentation for the parents. His very kid-friendly Powerpoint was basically useless, but fortunately he was flexible (and prepared… he had the presentation he’d used for Youth World Staff meeting last week with him as well) and jumped right into what needed to happen.
Our time at Emaús ended up lasting much longer than we expected. Even after the Africa presentation, there were snacks, and a birthday party upstairs for two of the youth. We were finally able to excuse ourselves with the true story that we were supposed to be at Alliance Academy back up north to play soccer with the Casa G boys at 3pm. So we took off, and way too impatient to ride the Trole or bus again, Ezechias paid for a taxi all the way back home.
Soccer went about how you’d expect it. We got to hang out with the boys and some of the staff from Casa G, which is always fun, and then headed to Chelsea’s house for dinner. We intended to watch a movie until the hosts and I needed to go pick up a team from the airport, but we ended up just sitting on the roof with a bluetooth speaker, having a sing-along for several hours.
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church is the team that was scheduled to come in at 10:13pm. Then they were delayed an hour. Then they were delayed another hour. Our bus driver was not happy with us that he had to wait, not that we have any control over Delta’s schedule or the weather in Atlanta, since that was the actual culprit. Finally at 10:45 we left for the airport. Grace and Bleu (the hosts) slept all the way there. I watched half a movie and slept for a while myself, on what should have been about a 40 minute drive at that time of night. There was no traffic whatsoever, and somehow it still took us an hour and twenty minutes to reach the Quito airport. I think our driver got lost while we were all asleep. We arrived around midnight, but our team (not surprisingly) didn’t get out until ten minutes after 1am. With 24 people, they are usually at the back of the immigration line, and take an hour after landing to actually walk out the door. So it wasn’t any big problem to us, but certainly didn’t help our driver’s mood. And again, he took twice as long to get home as we thought, but this time I knew for sure why, because he missed our exit from the highway and had to drive all the way to Central Quito and turn around to come back North. He really should pay more attention, but in his defense, the city of Quito should really build more exits on the Oriental. At any rate, 3am was when we finally left all those gringos at the hostel and headed for bed. Or for me, to a computer to record all the ordinary unexpectedness of this crazy Quiteño day.
