Last night two new groups arrived - one from Wisconsin and one from New Jersey. We welcomed them and it will be fun to get to know them.
This morning began early - we were to meet Saskia (a BVM Sister who is an Ecuadorian and lives with Sister Luann) for a tour of Wachay Yasi at 8am. Turned out that she was running late and didn't arrive until about 9:30 am. We waited on the bigger CMT bus (the smaller one broke down) with o ur driver. When we finally left, it took us about 40 minutes to get to Wachay Yasi. The name means "House of Wisdom" in Quechua and it is a school for about 60 students from all over Ecuador.
There were children from 10 different cultures there, from Cotopaxi, Quito, Otavalo, etc. Saskia speaks English so was able to translate for the Director, Orieta. She showed us the garden with all the native plants. There were several different types of potatoes, several medicinal plants, and quinoa. All the gardening is totally organic, the theory is that chemicals hurt mother earth (pachamama) and our body's. They reject fast food and processed food. All the children are involved in the planting and harvesting of the food.
After the garden tour, the children gathered and performed some of their native dances for us. When they were finished, they invited us to dance with them! They also shared some jicama which us (which they called a potato, although it looked like a sweet potato, but tasted like jicama, only sweeter).
When we left, we went to WBC #1 La Marin to attend Mass at 12 noon, eat lunch and then do some work. Mass was lovely, we were able to sit with the little children today. They were so sweet, hugging us and holding our hands. After Mass, we were told to go to the library for lunch. They had cheese, ham, bread for sandwiches, chips and coca-cola and bottled waters for us.
After lunch, we were broken into two groups for work. Maria, Fr. John, Laurie, Steve and Sue went upstairs to clean the walls of the kitchen. Lauren, Victorina, Chris, Alex, Vivian, Katy Katerina and I went downstairs into the arts & crafts room to paint the window frames.
We finished sooner than they had expected and they were not ready to take us back yet. So Marcia, a teacher from the Center took the bus back with us to make sure that we got home safely. It was quite an adventure! We had to take the yellow "Metro" bus to a transfer station. Then we got off and transfered to a blue regional bus back to CMT #2. We finally got back here at about 4:45 pm. It was a long day!
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