Yesterday was the official last day of training. We theoretically know everything we need to lead teams. (HA!) We spent the morning doing worship here at Adam and Sara’s and then headed to the park up near Chet and Katie’s to find out our parejas.
“Pareja” is a Spanish word that literally means “pair,” and we also use it to mean “partner.” Each pareja is one male and one female who will host one team together each block. They may or may not change over the course of the summer, but we will definitely be working together through Block 2 (the first block we will be leading teams) and getting some practice leading debrief during our visit to the Huaorani this coming week.
We went up to the park and split into guys and girls. Bryan took us up to the soccer field and we talked about training, good experiences, bad experiences, what really hit us in the face and what we hide behind. I think all six of us expected this to take about 10 minutes and then we’d have time to play football. It actually ended up stretching to an hour, drawing a few tears and a pretty long prayer session and being a really awesome, honest bonding experience for us all. We did end up having a little time to toss the ball, but only because the girls took longer (as the staff and site hosts were with them and they don’t all live together).
When everyone finished, we got in a big circle in the park and Dana and Bryan made us close our eyes and stick out our tongues. We really trust our Maestros. They put an M&M on each of our tongues and then had us open our eyes, not being able to see what color was on our tongue and find out who had a matching colored M&M. That was pretty hilarious. Matt and I both dropped our M&M before we were supposed to open our eyes and had to have them replaced. (I hope Dana gave me a new one…) When we did get started, we were all “taakiiii liiide diiis” and trying to find out what color we had. Angela got “owage” across to me pretty well, but I had to point to Dario’s shirt for fear of losing my M&M again in saying the color “bwue.”
So eventually we figured it out. Teddy with Nicole, Matt with Angela, Lane with Danielle, Jerry with Necia and me with Sarah. First off, I’m excited because Sarah’s just awesome, and secondly because she speaks Spanish and because she was a QQ host last summer. So now that that was figured out, we passed around “case studies” and talked about them with our pareja and then with the group. Some were a little funny, some were pretty scary, just about all of them had happened to one or more of the full-time QQ staff when they were hosting teams in the past. Ours were pretty easy because one happened to our team last year and the other had really clear rules laid out by Youth World and International Teams. Hopefully we won’t lose anyone or run into any riots or have 17 people get sick, but I’ll know what to do in any of those events.
Lunch was sort of a reward for finishing training. We walked down to Crepes &n Waffles, which is an extremely high class South American restaurant. It’s someplace not many teams go, and only to use as a learning experience about the social stratification here (in the same manner as the mall after the dump). Not that we haven’t been eating fantastic food and Pinchos and Yalo’s and the Vivancos’ and the Jensons’ and the DeVries’ and the Williams’, but I have a new favorite. And I’ll definitely appreciate it this week when we’re in the jungle having rice and yucca all the time.
The afternoon was ours off. We (the guys) went home and changed and then headed back to the park to play football for two hours before we needed to be at Chet and Katie’s for dinner and Huaorani briefing. We played 4-to-score 3 on 2 all-time rotating QB, rotating Q, O and D. And if you’d said that to me Thursday I would have had no clue what that meant. I think we’ve all got some battle scars, and I earned mine (as well as the name “Wheels McGrath”) with an 80-yard (scale) dash to within a couple yards of the end zone that ended in a front-flip roll into a flower bed. Jerry was definitely the MVP with another such dash that actually scored in the same play, as well as blocking like no other. Lane spent half the game diving for the ball, commonly seen in a Superman pose in the air. (The title of this post is a Teddy quote aimed at him).
We were exhausted by 5:00 when we walked down the hill to the Williams, but were sent back to play soccer with the kids (Tanner, 8 Brooklyn, 6 and Skyler, 3- ages are my approximations) because Chet was still at the mechanic’s with their car. When we did eventually get there, we began our briefing on what we’ll be doing and what to pack to go to the Huaorani (which has to be 25 lbs or less because we’ll be flying in from the MAF strip in Shell to a strip in the jungle). After a delicious dinner (I’m just taking my teams to Katie’s house for meals) we watched “Beyond the Gates of Splendor,” the documentary on the five missionaries killed by the Huaorani in the 1950s and the transformation of the tribe since then. That was really cool and really moving to watch, especially because we should be able to meet Mincaye next week.
Overall, it turned out to be more spiritual, more informational, and more fun, more relaxing (but still more exhausting) day than anyone anticipated. I’m looking forward to the jungle and to working with my pareja, and just thanking God for all the people around me.
