New Things

We have been in Loja for almost a week now and we are beginning to settle in. There are many things that still seem strange to us, but having lived outside of the United States before, and even having lived in South America before, there are some things that I don't find different enough. May things I had expected to be the same as Bolivia are actually more similar to the US. I feel silly for telling Johanna to leave her hair dryer at home now that I know that Ecuador uses 110 volt electricity just like we do in the US. The distinct smell of floor polish and South American cleaning solutions hitting my nose in the airport made me feel at home. But even though the trucks that sell water and gas play a tune over their loud speakers that sounds like the first 6 notes of "Be it ever so hum-ble there's no place like home" it doesn't make them sound any less strange. (We will have to record this song and post it on our website.)

The taste of tree ripened bananas again for the first time in 2 years has done my heart well. But the apparent lack of similarity between Ecuadorian cooking and Bolivian cooking has left me sad. Various missionaries have fed us at least one meal a day so far and although they have joked about different Ecuadorian dishes no one has fed us any Ecuadorian food yet, and no one has admitted to liking it. I finally bought some fry bread from a street vender yesterday as my first Ecuadorian food. It was good and very much what I had expected so maybe the missionaries here just don't appreciate Ecuadorian food. The SIM team here is about 50% Australian, so maybe that is the problem. It will be fun to get to know and get picked on by the second most patriotic country on earth.

-Micah