Revolving Doors

I suppose going to Ecuador is kind of like using a revolving door. There is a whole new world on the other side, which I can see from where I stand. Looking through, it looks fascinating.

Once I step inside the revolving door (otherwise known as getting on the airplane), I have a choice.

I can leave the relative safety of the revolving door (my comfort zone) and step out into the unknown. I can explore the world on the other side, then step back into the door when it's time and arrive back at the same place I left from, bringing my new friendships back with me.

Or I can stay in the revolving door, doing nothing that stretches my abilities, prejudices, or viewpoint. I can say that I was "in" Ecuador, like I can say that being on the inside of the revolving door means I was "in" a building, but I won't have really seen it or experienced it.

I'm going to go with the first, if at all possible. I fully intend to experience Ecuadorian life to the fullest, as much as I can without going against my conscience.

After all, Jesus did the first. It would have been so much easier for Him to just come for a week or so, redeem us, and go back to heaven, leaving us behind - redeemed, but without a relationship. He didn't do that. He stayed among us for thirty-three years, teaching us, loving us, building relationships. He became one of us, even though He was the epitome of a foreigner (think of something like being God and then being a human and God at once).

With that in mind, it won't be so hard to "be" an Ecuadorian.

Two Weeks

It's 7:09 in the morning on a beautifully cold Saturday in Chicago. I will be leaving for O'Hare airport around this time in two weeks to go to Ecuador. (A mere two weeks! Imagine the pressure! AAAAAAHHHHHH!)

I still don't know what family I'm staying with in Cuenca. This is coming from a girl who, though random on paper and computer screen, likes to have her life semi-together. She likes to know what's going on. If she doesn't know what's going on, she at least wants to really know the people who are currently in the same boat of uncertainty that she is.

I've lived with a level of uncertainty all my life. Everyone has, I think. I just have had rather high levels over the past few years, and I have grown to love knowing what I'm doing in life--at least, in the next semester. And now I have to retrain my mind, my focus, my mindset, my entire mental program, in order to see things through an Ecuadorian mindset.

I've realized that my unconsciously westernized viewpoint is diametrically opposed to what I will find in Ecuador. In some parts of South America, it is a saying (or, at least, a mindset) that the past is before us, the future behind. That's so counter-intuitive to a person like me. I know that I can see the past (because I lived it), but I've always thought of the future as in front of me. They're right, though: you can't see the future. You can only see the past, and therefore, it is the past, not the future, that is before you.

And that, my friend, will take a bit of mind calisthenics to understand. 

Procrastination and the History of Cuenca

This is a procrastination post, quite simply. I should be finishing up a paper, writing a lab report, filling out a Spanish assignment, coming up with a lesson plan, writing a quiz, making a rubric, tweaking several paragraphs, and doing all sorts of funky equations for chemistry. (That's all I have left for the semester, by the way.)

But I also finished up a nerve-wracking four minutes of recitation in Spanish today, and have thus been able to listen to something in the car other than Psalm 103 in Spanish for the first time in a week without feeling guilty. (It's a nice feeling.) So I feel that I'm entitled to take a bit of time out of my overpacked and underslept week to tell you that I have a mere 36 days and 14 hours until I hie me to Ecuador. (Hie is a great word, albeit a little outdated. OK, a lot outdated. Still.)


Now, for the history enthusiasts out there who might actually be reading this admittedly unorganized post due to the title, I want to tell you a little bit about the history of the awesome place I'm going to.

According to Wikipedia (considered unreliable by everyone important in academia, but I'm going into finals week and really couldn't care less about that), Cuenca was founded in 1557 on top of a Cañari and Incan capital and named after Cuenca, Spain. Part of this was because Cuenca, Spain was the mastermind-founder's hometown (he was the Viceroy of Peru, and, even if he didn't actually found the place, he took the credit) and also because their geographic locations were so similar. "Cuenca" means a basin created by a confluence of rivers. (These guys were, obviously, super original.)

So, that's the history of the founding of Cuenca, and it has nothing to do with procrastination. These titles can really throw you off.