Ecuador – Page 6 – dannypeck.net

French Toast and Crazies

The very first night when I had moved in with Lourdes and her family back in October, she told me the hers was a “casa de locos,” a house full of crazies. And just to be clear, as I move forward with this post, I’m going to totally agree with that in a very loving way.

This morning I rolled out of bed at 5:45am to quickly get ready, head out the door, be on one of the first moving Troles, and be at Lourdes’ before breakfast. I wanted to make french toast (which as I mentioned yesterday, they’ve been begging me to do), but I didn’t want them to be counting on it in case I totally slept in, so I gave them absolutely no warning that this was my intention.

Fast forward to 8:27am. Marta and I have successfully loaded up a plate full of french toast on the table. The two of us are eating with Jose, who has closed the tienda downstairs to join us. Jose is poking his sister-in-law Marta with a fork like they’re both about 5 as opposed to 50. Lourdes (who has already eaten at lightning speed) is running around in high heels looking for her notebook, which she has clearly left in plain sight on the table. Adrian is wearing flip-flops, pajama pants, and a parka, listening to English metal bands and playing a computer game.

No wonder my facebook statuses have gotten so much more boring since I’m living up north again.

Pictured below is Marta making french toast. She’s being trying to teach me to cook Ecuadorian food for four months. I can’t begin to tell you how hard she laughed when I told her “Yo voy a hacer french toast. Quieres aprender?”

Eating Like a Cat

I really appreciate when people from home have a good grasp of some of the differences between life here and life in the United States. I got an e-mail tonight from a friend of mine who quoted a statistic she’d read, which I’m sure would be just as accurate if changed to Ecuador: “In Costa Rica the average family consumes less meat than the average house cat eats in the United States.” Among other things, my friend went on to note how funny it was to think of me eating less meat than Sophie (my cat). At one point in time, I’d probably have ranted about that being incredibly sad as opposed to funny. Now, I’m still telling you that that statistic is sad, but I’ll admit anyway that the image itself is pretty funny as well, mostly because of some of my experiences.
There are several times that I can think of at which I’m 100% sure my cat was consuming more meat than me for weekends or weeks at a time because of the places where I was serving. In fact, for good chunks of time while I was living with an Ecuadorian family, there were probably even longer stretches than that.
When the Quito Quest interns helped put on a Vacation Bible School for Huaorani kids in the jungle community of Toñampare in June 2008, I can’t begin to explain to you how excited we were at the rare meals where we had eggs. Those were the main source of protein that went into our meals that week, and the only time we ate any meat for those seven days (eight days for some of us) were the totally random parts of chicken we might be lucky enough to get in our soup. Jerry kept getting heads and talons and odd organs (see this recent related post by my friend Dana), and the poor guy probably didn’t actually consume any of that chicken.
The difference between us and the Huaorani was that Chet Williams had several bags of beef jerky that he’d dole out to the guys every couple of nights after our devotions and debrief (and after the girls had left… we totally didn’t tell them either). More than just having “man time” with a comfort food (I can see my mom cringing at my description of beef jerky as “comfort food”), we were giving our bodies something closer to the level of those specific nutrients that they were used to, and our brains the reassurance of consuming (something that was vaguely) meat.
Even in situations that aren’t as extreme and isolated as an indigenous community that lives 30 minutes into the jungle by airplane, things are certainly different here on the food front. Let’s say that you are a single mother who makes just a few hundred dollars a month and has five kids, with no husband/dad in the picture. That’s a very typical family situation here. And in that situation, you end up eating a lot of rice and a lot of eggs. After you pay your rent and clothe your kids, those are cheap ways to get full and get protein, respectively.
Eating with Ecuadorian church communities and/or families, I’ve caught myself thinking on several occasions “Where’s the main course here?” and realizing that despite there being a large amount of food in front of me, I wasn’t thinking of it as a complete meal because there was no chicken, beef, or pork. And it took me until even writing this very paragraph to realize how cultural that is. The same way that Ecuadorians don’t consider a sandwich a meal (there is no fork involved, thus it doesn’t count), my own conceptions about what constitutes a meal come from my personal cultural background.
In fact, if I manage to wake up early enough in the morning to make it to Guajalo at a reasonable hour for breakfast, I’m going to make French Toast for Lourdes and her family (apparently Carrie did this and it made quite an impression, and they’ve been begging me for about a week to repeat the experience). I’m intentionally not going to buy bacon on the way just as a reminder to myself about my own unintentional cultural prejudices, about the need here, and about how good I have it. I’m not telling you that to sound all noble or anything (insert sarcasm: “really, you’re not going to make bacon for one breakfast?”). I’m just saying it’s nice to have those reminders sometimes.
But I’ll be thinking about Sophie chowing down on her Tender Bites back home.

I Promise I Can Feed Myself

Just about everyone from home who hasn’t been here asks me “What do you eat?” any time I talk to them. People older than me tend to ask this with either the tone of voice that says “You are eating, right?” or the even less convincing manner that simply comes across as “I really don’t believe you’re eating.”

I have to say I’m really thankful for the internet, so I can call my parents and ask “How you do cook a…?” or simply Google it if I feel like I should really have already known. And I’ve certainly learned how to make several things, and have gotten to experiment with things baking at high altitude and using an oven that only has 3 settings¹ and no inside light.

But so that all your fears can be calmed, and so that I can show off a little bit, here is a fairly random sampling of some of my creations.

This is my “Mitad del Mundo” Burger on a toasted bun, so named because I got the idea for adding the fried egg from a restaurant at the equator monument here in Quito. Notice the avocado. Everything’s better with avocado, especially in Ecuador.

¹In the words of my friend Sarah Marr: “On a scale of min to max, where do you think 350 is?”

Tree House

When I was a little kid in Anderson, South Carolina, I had a tree house. It was huge (granted, I was 3-5 while we lived there) and had a swing set attached and a sandbox underneath. I remember running out to it in the rain and climbing into the covered part when we were house-hunting before we even moved there. I remember playing up there for hours with Dee Hayes. I remember the time I fell off the top rung of the ladder and twisted my arm catching myself on the way down. I remember begging my mom to take the whole thing apart so we could move it with us to Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Maybe it’s because of these that I so closely associate tree houses with childhood, but I felt very childlike this afternoon as we took the team out to Hacienda El Refugio and had facilitated quiet time in the tree house. The El Refugio tree house is something dreamed up by Paul Reichert that the staff and tons of teams have been building for three years. It’s finally finished, and this was my second opportunity to spend time there.

Part of Paul’s devotion was about the fact that we are children of God. People talked about the image of sitting on God’s knee, or thinking in terms of other people being God’s children as well. But for me, I just thought of how much we have to learn as children. Being a learner, especially even as I am in a leadership position this week, has been a theme for me over the last few days.

We talked a lot today about why we have days out at El Refugio. We want to have intentional quiet, worship, and prayer time, taking a step back from scheduled “ministry” days to realize that we worship and minister through our lives. Having that childlike feeling of being in a tree house, it was quite easy to do that all afternoon, being intentionally in the position of a learner and being among other children of God. Even after our official time there was finished, I stayed around and had a chat with Mark, Cathy, and Deb. They are all old enough to be my parents, and Mark is the team leader, but as we talked about our worship time, about the tree house, about ministry, and about what God had been teaching us, I think we all learned something from each other and from God, and did our best to share our hearts and thoughts as well. For those twenty minutes or so, reading scripture and talking, our responsibilities, our titles, and our schedule simply didn’t matter. We just had fun being God’s kids together.

I’ve heard Paul’s orientation both times I’ve gone to the tree house, and as he puts it, we don’t have to go to a specific place to worship, but it’s a helpful opportunity when we set aside a specific time and space to connect with God. A lot of what that specific tree house represents is a space in my heart, but that’s exactly what I was able to set aside today, and what I think we all need to remember to do as we go about serving not just in physical times and places set aside, but with every aspect of our lives.

First Adult Team

I knew going into hosting this team that it was totally made up of adults and that that would be something different for me. I’ve always had youth teams before, and it’s been interesting to observe, before we’ve even had a scheduled ministry day, how very different certain aspects of our time together have been.

The first thing that has really stuck out to me has been their tendency to wander off. For the first hour or so at the Basilica today, it drove me nuts, but as I told Dario later on, I realized that to some extent that’s something I need to let go of. With youth teams, the teenagers might not necessarily want to be right with the whole team all the time (or any of the time), but they will at least stay withing seeing distance, because they know if they wander off, they’ll be in trouble with somebody later. Every time I did a head count today (which is something I do pretty constantly), someone was missing. More often than not it was the same person, who always quickly found his way back to us.

The questions this group has asked me have had their own twist to them, they follow the rules really well and drink lots of water and wear their sunscreen, we take lots more bathroom breaks, they’re quiet on the bus and at meals but animated at debrief, and they sing. Let me repeat that. They sing. I love groups that sing. I hosted a summer team once which whom devotions including music was like pulling teeth, so I appreciate it when groups actually participate vocally. Not that worship has to be musical, but personally, a devo wouldn’t be devo if it didn’t include either writing or music, so it means a lot to me when they choose to throw in songs at the end of a debrief and it’s a way that I can really worship as well.

The great thing about a team of only 10 is that you actually know everyone’s names at the end of the first day. I’ve gotten to spend at least a little bit of time already with almost everyone on a one-on-one or smaller group basis, and I feel like we’ll know the team really well be the end of their time here. There’s only one or two I have hesitations with about their level of flexibility, but we are working at Carmen Bajo this week. Not that you can help falling in love with any ministry site here, but speaking from experience, you really can’t help but fall in love with Carmen Bajo and I think after a few hours getting to know people there and seeing how things are done the South American way, I have no fear that will melt quickly away.

With only one person’s luggage lost and no other disasters on the first day, I’m looking forward to working, serving, and worshiping alongside this group.

OH! And I ordered food on the phone in Spanish for the first time today. That’s always been something that has terrified me. Possibly because I’ve heard what a nightmare it is to order pizza in this country (fortunately we were calling in for chicken), but mostly because speaking your second language on the phone is exponentially more difficult. But I ordered twelve boxes of chicken, two salads, and three drinks… and half an hour later, the order showed up exactly right and in the correct place. The senorita on the other end didn’t even ever have to ask me to repeat anything, and when I gave her a non-standard answer to “what room are you in” at the hostal (I responded “I’ll be there to find the driver” because I could think how to say that much faster than “there’s a common room at the top of the stairs”) she rolled with it and wasn’t confused by what I said. I’m a little proud. Probably a little too proud, but there you have it.

Now and then

Today we were supposed to have our first spring sort-term team on the ground. Well, you can guess how that turned out.

Dario and I were on our way to Hostal Bosque in a taxi when we were informed that our team would not be arriving tonight, and we were unsure exactly when they would actually make it into the country. Stuck in Toronto, the team leader finally called to let us know when they had some semblance of an itinerary, and now we hope to be picking them up at the airport at 10:30 in the morning, which means we won’t be headed to Carmen Bajo for church.

It’s funny to look back almost two years ago to the first team I hosted with Sarah. We were in the same situation, having planned for a team that ended up being delayed almost a full 24 hours. I remember sitting in the kitchen at Dana and Ashley’s house, staring across the table at Sarah with absolutely no idea even where to begin dealing with the situation as we learned about it, and knowing exactly how lost I would have been without her. This afternoon, however, Dario got the phone call that our team hadn’t even made it out of Canada yet, and we both shrugged and went about our plans. I mentally pulled up the schedule and knew that the simplest thing we could do was to cut Carmen Bajo totally from our day tomorrow, and we’ll make the calls as we go along about how much touristy Quito activities we do, based on time and how settled our team gets. Dario (since he managed to get some saldo) called Fabian and Rogelio and let them know the revised plan and neither of them freaked out either.

In 2008 I wrote an entry called “Flex and flow”, a manta-like phrase around Youth World, and something Sarah Miller would say multiple times every day. She even has her own personal sign language for it. I think at the time I titled the post that way and talked positively about the concept more to actively teach myself to believe it more than anything. I’m not the most flexible person in the universe, but I’m certainly much more flexible now than I was two years ago. Part of that has been learning what solutions are even available when a schedule crisis like this one occurs. Part of it has been adjusting to how South American life in general just functions. And part of it has been having some really awesome examples.

After a day putting away groceries and setting up the hostal with absolutely no hurry (and then watching funny movies with Dario all night) I can really appreciate all three of those things.

Communication

This weekend the Quito Quest staff went to Riobamba, Ecuador, partly to participate at ministry sites in the area and partially as a scouting mission for some short-term teams we will be taking there during the spring and summer. It was an absolute blast that the whole of QQ got to go. We absolutely have the best department in Youth World. Not always the most serious, amicable, or reverent, especially when ill-rested, but still the best.

We actually mainly just slept and occasionally ate in Riobamba proper, because the ministry sites which we visited were all pretty far removed from the city. This meant driving usually over an hour up and down crazy mountainsides with sheer cliffs to the side and rocks, ditches, dogs, and sleeping women in the path of our bus. On the way to a second ministry site on Friday, a makeshift bridge actually broke under the driver’s side front wheel and we spent the next significant portion of the afternoon attempting (and finally succeeding) in removing our only realistically conceivable mode of transportation from the ditch in which its entire front had become lodged. I might add that we did this with only rocks, a long but rather flimsy-looking log, and elbow grease. We were also all incredibly thankful that the wheel, tire, axel, and surrounding body were undamaged, especially considering we had exactly zero spare tires.

At the ministry sites themselves, it was one surprise after another. We had been told to expect a colder-climate style culture than what we are used to in Quito or on the coast or in the jungle. What stood out to me after two days was the difference between each ministry site and each of the others in terms of how people reacted to our presence and our activities there. At our first stop, with only twenty people or so, those who came sang with us, responded to questions, and jumped into our ridiculous games. Even the older adults were enthusiastic about running around during a fantastic gato y raton game that I’m going to have to take back with me for North American youth activities. Our second ministry site was much the same in enthusiasm, probably more so here, however, because of the huge number of children present. But Saturday morning, we went to another mountain community and felt like we were pulling teeth to even get “yes” or “no” answers or hands raised to simple questions.

Part of this, I’m sure, had to do with language. Certainly not all, which I’ll get to in a moment, but part of it, at least, had to do with language. While pretty much everyone did speak Spanish, it is a second language for a significant portion of all of the communities which we visited. These were very much indigenous communities, and most of the people there, particularly the older ones, grew up speaking Quichua. We actually got some Quichua lessons over breakfast, and I now know the phrases for “What is your name?”, “How are you?”, “Yes,” “No,” and “Flower,” in Quichua. We practiced the first four over and over again during breakfast, and “Flower” happens to be the only word of somewhere around 4o million that one of the pastors’ sons taught me on a bus ride Saturday morning. I won’t attempt to spell any of them here in Quichua, but I can say them.

That said, there were a few stumbles, especially among gringos and Quiteños attempting Quichua, and depending on whether Spanish or Quichua was the first language of each individual indigenous person, but overall that aspect went well. The epic fail was our humor. By Saturday afternoon we had learned how not to make to much of fools of ourselves, but up until that point, there were a lot of times when someone would make a joke (in Spanish), and everyone from Youth World (Ecuadorianas included) would laugh and everyone from the community would just stare at us. The one time they were sure to laugh, however, was when one of us would ask how to say something in Quichua, someone else would tell them, and then we would proceed to butcher it. We’ll take what we can get, though.

Aside from some awkward moments where the kids and even the adults would hardly talk to us, we actually got to plug into what was going on at these sites, and I am looking forward to the possibility of going back with some of this Quito Quest crew to these sites this summer.

Socks, Sickness, and Breakfast

As Cameron said tonight, “There might be some truth to it, but…” Every time anyone gets sick here, it gets blamed on the temperature and your awareness and preparedness for it.

Kelsey and I constantly joke around about wearing socks. For instance, after having been seriously sick last week (which was 100% due to dehydration, though Lourdes blamed it on my not having on a sweatshirt that day) I have had a small cold for the last two or three days. I feel perfectly fine, but I’ve just been coughing a lot, and it’s going away now. But I came home to Lourdes’ house yesterday afternoon just in time for it to start raining as I was walking from the Trole station back to the tienda. If it had started raining while I was on the Trole, I would have stood around and waited for the bus, but the bottom dropped when I was almost exactly halfway between the station and the house. No sense turning around, I ran for it, but go drenched anyway. Jose laughed at me a little when I walked in the tienda, but concernedly made sure he told me to go upstairs and change. I did just that, but having taken almost all of my clothes back to the intern apartment in the north in preparation to move back there, I had no socks in the house. I walked out of my room barefoot to fill up my water bottle in the kitchen, and Lourdes came upstairs at just the same time. So of course, I immediately got the “You’re sick because you’re not wearing socks” lecture and went to put on tennis shoes.

The next story won’t seem related at first. Be patient.

I tend to be late for morning meetings because of breakfast. Breakfast with the family is both non-negotiable and a bit of an ordeal. In the US, if I had an 8:30 meeting with an 60-90 minute commute to get there, I might grab a Pop-Tart on the way out the door, or more likely just skip breakfast or hope the meeting was finished before Hardee’s stops serving Cinnamon & Raisin biscuits at 10:30. That’s not an option here because (we don’t have Hardee’s, we don’t have Pop-Tarts, and mostly because) nobody in the house, from abuelita down to the kids, is going to let me leave without sitting down and eating with me. One morning I had to be at Youth World early, so I made myself coffee so I could honestly tell Lourdes I had breakfast already (coffee is always the main component of breakfast and dinner). I should have left the dishes out so there would have been some evidence, but since I washed them, Lourdes asked me all that day and literally all the next if I was sure I had made myself breakfast that morning.

Today I was in the kitchen helping Marta when Miguel (my friend and both Lourdes’ and Marta’s nephew, therefore Adrian’s cousin) started frantically looking around the house for some things. Adrian came out of his room a minute later and I realized he was not feeling good. Miguel told me he was taking Adrian to the hospital. As Miguel was running around the house, Marta started asking him about food. It went something like this (though it was, obviously, in Spanish):

Marta: Have you eaten breakfast yet?

Miguel: No.

Marta: Are you going to?

Miguel: No.

Marta: You have to eat breakfast!

Miguel: Well, not this morning.

Marta: I have the water boiling already. I’m pouring coffee right now.

Miguel: I don’t believe we can right now.

Miguel then proceeded to run downstairs to hop in the car, Adrian stumbling along with him, clutching his side like it was going to explode any minute. Marta scoffed at them under her breath until they were long gone, bemoaning her ridiculous nephews, skipping breakfast.

Tonight, Cameron and I had talked about Adrian, and before she dropped me off at my apartment, Cameron called Lourdes to check on the situation. Turns out Adrian had pneumonia. He’s doing much better, but he’ll have to stay in the hospital for three days due to a torn membrane in his lung, which is what allowed him to get the infection. Lourdes’ theory, however? “He works in a restaurant over a hot stove, and then they go in and out of the freezer all day. Hot, cold, hot, cold.” Again, as Cameron said, maybe there’s some truth to that. Maybe. Some. At least he was wearing his socks.

This post originally published at www.dannypeck.net

Christmas Party to Remember

Tuesday, we had our Youth World Christmas party, a day that I won’t soon forget. I think I must have eaten something sketchy on Monday night, because I felt slightly strange most of yesterday morning, but not bad enough not to work. After lunch, though, Cameron told me I was looking pretty pale, which I’ve learned is a sure sign I’m about to lose whatever food I’ve got in me. Cam drove me home and I actually did get sick, but then slept it off and felt pretty good by 4:15 when I needed to head down the hill to the office for the party. I figured I’d be fine.

Turns out the Christmas party was an “Amazing Race” that split us up into teams and sent us out to see who could make it to the “Pit Stop” first. My team was Casey, Phil Payne, Ivet, Jorge, Kyra and Beth. We were sent out from the YW office, all around Parque Carolina, and then finally to Plaza Foch in the Mariscal. We rode bikes, peeled potatoes, bought Christmas ornaments, and rented paddle boats. I was in a paddle boat with Ivet and Kyra and we’d made it almost all the way around the lake when we realized Jorge had gotten stuck in a boat by himself, so I jumped ship and helped him paddle back around the the lake. This definitely helped us pull out ahead, but twice around the lake was not a good idea for my health.

We finally completed all our tasks, and made it to the restaurant that was our end-point, meeting Brad and Sandi and discovering that we had won. I’m not sure if it just took that long for sickness plus ridiculous amounts of exercise to catch up to me, or if my body was like “Oh, he’s relaxing now, I can finally freak out.” But I began to realize as we hung out, waiting for the other teams to show up, that I couldn’t relax my arms.

Before I knew it, my hands were clenched into fists that I couldn’t release, and my upper legs and forearms were starting to tense up too. Dave Gardeen came over to sit down next to me, and I told him “Go get Casey now.” I’m really thankful that Casey had been on my team so that he was finished at the same time as me. Before he moved to Ecuador to work with Casa Gabriel, Casey was a physical therapist. I truly think I would have had to go to the hospital if Casey hadn’t been there, realizing that I was dehydrated and knowing where to put pressure and what to have me consume to get my muscles to relax and blow flow going back through my arms.

Now, I explained all that concisely in one paragraph, not for lack of description, but that I simply would rather not relive the experience. On a scale of 1-10 from least to worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, it was easily a 9 if not a 10. I threw up a significant amount, and Matt took me home (as in, to his home, so he and Marlo could keep an eye on me).

I have eaten a lot of plain food yesterday and today, relaxed and recovered at the Jensens’ house under Marlo’s supervision, and got to go to the regular Youth World meeting this afternoon. At which I was scheduled to lead worship with Brad. So I got to be in front of all those people who saw me in a pretty embarrassing state two nights ago. I decided to just embrace it, so as I got everyone’s attention before we started to play and sing, I made reference to the fact that I tried to die at the Christmas party, but I was wearing my winning-team-Santa-hat, so it must have been worth it. Mary Scholl shouted out in her best mom voice “And what did you learn?”

To which I responded, “Not to try to keep up with Jorge.”

Quito Days Kickoff

I’ve heard many different people talk about fireworks here, and every single description I’ve ever been given includes the phrase “…would be totally illegal in the U.S.” Whether it’s the sheer amount of fireworks used, the danger level involved (you never just stop at sparklers), or the lack of safety precautions or cleanup of leftover open flames, it’s always sounded incredibly dodgy, perilous, and similar to my weekends in high school.

Somehow, I’ve always missed out on fireworks here. I left too early in 2008 and came too late in 2009 for 10 de Agosto, and someone (who shall remain nameless) forgot to purchase 4^th of July fireworks before we left Quito for our intern retreat when I was a summer host. This situation was finally rectified Saturday night, with the kickoff of Quito Days this year.

December 6^th is the anniversary of the founding of Quito, and the week leading up to it is filled with parties, neighborhood band performances, fireworks, bullfights, and food. I’m still working on bullfight tickets, but Marta and Erica took me down the street Saturday night to an empty lot with a bonfire and a bunch of people dancing to the neighborhood band playing traditional Ecuadorian music. A couple of groups performed dances in costume, and it was pretty fun to watch. It wasn’t even so bad when Marta literally dragged me out to dance, despite my pleas.

After an hour or so, I saw a man go for the gigantic bull costume that had been stashed in a corner. It was a wooden frame with something similar to papier-mâché on the outside with which a single man could run around wearing. What I did not realize until someone came running over carrying a torch was that it was literally covered in fireworks.

At first, they just lit a few wheel-style fireworks that spun around on the body of the bull and showered us with small sparks as the guy ran around the circle. Everyone screamed as he got close to them, but nobody ran for cover. So, trying not to stick out at this kind of thing more than I already do, I remained seated, (somewhat) calmly covering my head and hoping nothing nearby would burst into flame. After his second round, they started lighting the stuff that actually flew off the body of the bull in who-knew-what-direction. This time people ducked and covered, and I turned tail and found myself watching from 20 yards away near a big wagon I behind which I could take shelter at a moment’s notice. Marta seemed to think this was a good idea as well.

Sometime during the third or fourth time the “bull” ran around the circle of onlookers, they brought out a gigantic heart on a 15-ish foot pole, and set that up near the bonfire. The fireworks all over this thing were lit as well, with sparklers on steroids lighting up in sequence clockwise around the heart. As the provided a little bit more illumination, I realized what I thought was the empty center of the heart was actually a large portrait of Christ being showered in progressively more sparks as a second and third set of sparklers went off, followed by rocket-like fireworks the size of anti-aircraft missiles launching from the top and back of the heart. During all of this, the bull is still running around, still launching its own fireworks, and still sending spectators out of the way, particularly when it begin to set fire to the large stack of fuel, tinder, and kindling for the bonfire. The fuel pile, in fact, was at this point as big as the bonfire itself, and would have become a second one had it not been for the rain. I was also thankful it finally started more than sprinkling, because it gave us an excuse to head home around midnight.

All in all, I have a burn on the top of my head from a stray spark, and it was pretty hard to wake up for church in the morning, but I’d totally do it all over again. Maybe from a slightly safer distance.