Day One

After a long day of travel, we finally arrived in Guayaquil at around 2:00 pm. Our flight left SFO late last night by about 20 minutes. Subsequently, we arrived late in Panama, so we missed our connecting flight. Copa Airlines transferred our reservation to another flight which left about 2.5 hours after the original one. This gave us a little bit of time to relax, enjoy people watching and for some of us to get something to eat. (Even though breakfast was served on the flight to Panama, a couple people in the group missed the food because they were sleeping).

The flight from Panama to Guayaquil had few passengers so we were able to stretch out - thank goodness! After having to try to sleep on the overnight flight, all scrunched up was no fun at all!
We arrived on time in Guayaquil, made it through "migraciones" and went to claim our bags. All was good there until we realized that Nora's 2nd large suitcase was missing! We went to the Lost and Found and were told that Copa knew the bag was lost, and that it would be arriving at 6:00 pm. Whew.

We went through customs and as promised, Sr. Annie and Germania were there to great us with the requisite hugs and kisses. We loaded all the suitcases, here a picture of some of them from when we arrived to the Hostel.

It was like a clown car trying to get all the bags into 2 compact trunks and the back of the passenger van that would carry us! Very funny but it all worked out.

After checking in to our rooms and unloading our stuff, we drove to Damien House with Sr. Annie and Germania. There, we had dinner. Traditional Ecuadorian fare - llapingachos, sausage, peanut sauce, rice and fried plantanos.

Next, Annie gave us a brief tour of the Foundation, we visited with residents and promised to be back tomorrow.

Abel is here again this year! Two years ago, he was a volunteer whom we met while visiting. He's now graduated from High School and starting at University in Guayaquil as an International Business Major.

Our welcome by Fortunato.

There are 19 residents there currently.  Tomorrow, we go back for Mass at 10:00 am and then work at the Foundation.