Welcome home!

So after a long two flights, and sitting in the middle of a high school Christian mission group traveling to Ecuador, I finally made it. I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to find my host family so I wanted to make sure I looked like a gringa and put on my GW medicine sweatshirt so they could recognize me. Afterwards, I realized that the sweatshirt probably wasn't necessary. My host sister, Susy, was waiting for me with a sign with my name. They are amazing people. My host parents are Ana or Abuela (grandma) and Luis or Abuelo. Susy a grown daughter lives with us and her son, Marcelo who is 8. There are often several other grandkids over the house at different times. Another grown son and his family live in an adjoining house. We also have Jordana, a medical student from Argentina who studies in Holland living with me, Elaine and Carlos. More to come.

I'm Alive

For those of you who were worried, I am alive and well. Mom... I'm sorry it took so long to contact but we literally arrived in Ecuador and hit the ground running. My host family couldn't remember how to use the internet and we had to wait for their kids to come home which was 2 days later. I also have no cell phone yet, and no phone cards. I also can't get any of the needed items because I literally can't speak to a single person in this country. But no fear tomorrow Espagnol classes will commense. I will update about my weekend adventure, host family, and the Ecuadorian ways in my next post. Until then...

Mistake #1 When Ana (host mom) gives you a roll of toilet paper in your room, you should bring it with you to the bathroom or you are SOL.


With love and maybe Leishmaniasis,
Alissa

New country... New Adventure

So everything below this is from my last adventure/work in Israel with Save a Child's Heart in 2009. It's old news. The new adventure starts here in Ecuador.

really long post

So as usual I am really behind on everything that is happening here. We have had to say many goodbyes and hellos in the past week. Denis, the Romanian baby was the first to go. His mother was so excited and so grateful to all the people at SACH. She even bought a heart to be put up on the "Wall of hearts" as a donation for children to come in the future. Next we had the arrival of two little girls from Romania, Briana and Daria, 2 and 3 years old. Briana also has Down Syndrome so she is a challenge as she likes to wander outside the house and is always getting into things. But she, as well as Daria, is very lovable. Shortly after that we a large group of 6 children from Zanzibar and one from Nigeria. Three of the kids from Zanzibar came without mothers because they were over the age of three and as long as they come in a group they come without family. They also came with a nurse who speaks English which is a big help since the mothers and kids only speak Swahili. If you don't know where Zanzibar is... it is a small island off the coast of Tanzania and is part of the country although culturally it is very different. All of these families are Muslim, unlike those in the house now. When the little girls arrived they were wearing gorgeous dresses in bright colors with lace and satin. Ian was also a great help and talked to the Zanzibars in Swahili when we needed something while the nurse was away.

Sadly, Ian left the next day as did Magda. It was very bittersweet. I couldn't be more excited for them to go home and see their families and friends, however, I will really miss them and in just a few weeks I have become so attached to them all. I am so happy they are well enough to go home but in the back of my mind I know that I will never see them again. A few of the mothers have email addresses so we exchanged or I took down the mailing address but who knows how the post works in Angola? So far I've cried every time someone leaves but I think I am getting better. After a while you must get used to it. Living in the house I have such an amazing bond with both the mothers and the children, much different from the volunteers that just come during the day for a few hours.

The next to go was the Ghanians. Both families were able to go together which was really great for the mothers giving them support for the long flight. Almost all of the flights to Africa go through Europe so they all have a layover. Queenie and Edmond left at 2am on friday. They woke me up to say goodbye and everyone got up and went out to the gate by the curb to see them off as the cab drove away. They were dressed in their best clothes for the trip, like all the others. I guess they didn't realize how long and tiring the trip was going to be for a 2 and 6 year old. Edmond was even wearing a little suit and tie.

That same day we also had the arrival of a 10year old boy from Eithiopia. He came completely by himself. There was no mother, sister, aunt, nurse, or group with him. He got on an airplane alone to go to a country where he knew no one and didn't speak the language. He doesn't speak any English but seems to understand through pointing and gestures. His name is Tamru. He is very small most likely due to the heart defect and has had a very hard life at home. He was living on the streets by himself. An Australian organization found him and was helping him when they discovered the heart defect and contacted Save a Child's Heart. They found his mother to try and bring her over with him but she was ill herself and living in horrible conditions so SACH decided to bring him over by himself.

When he first arrived he was a little nervous and was crying but the next morning he was playing with the other kids and having fun. He is a very sweet boy and takes care of all the little ones. He is especially sweet with Briana and Daria. They are little and usually play by themselves as they are the only children not from Africa. Tamru always comes over to play with them and when one of them falls he runs over to pick them up right away. When one of the little ones goes up the stairs he follows closely behind them so that they don't fall. I have never met a child so sweet in my life.

Continued from yesterday

Here is the end to yesterdays adventure, but first I have to give a shout out to Ashley because she actually reads this and I didn't believe that anyone, other than my family, read this. So I went to see Anna, my Israeli soldier friend from birthright. She lives in Netanya which is a smaller city a little up the coast from Tel Aviv but not as far as Haifa. The beach was gorgeous but not in a flashy, stuck up, resort sort of way. It had much more of a local shore kind of feeling. The city is on a cliff so to get to the beach we had to walk down a huge staircase. There is also a gigantic elevator that sticks out from the cliff and goes the several story drop to the beach. It was a very relaxed evening and we had some amazing salads and margaritas and walked around.

When I came home I got the bad news that Edmond, the six year old Ghanian boy had a seizure earlier in the day. It was completely unrelated to his heart problem but it was still very serious and an ambulance was called. Apparently he has had a history of them and was on medicine but stopped it. His mother doesn't have any education and doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation. While he was lying on the floor unconcsious. She was slapping his face and pouring water on him to wake him up. Edmond also has brain damage and does not function like a normal six year old. His mother says that his father always wants to beat him for being naughty but he really just doens't have the mental abilities of other children.

I am tying this post in the living room, which I knew would be a big mistake. Whenever I go on the laptop here I am mauled by children trying to see what I am doing on the screen and wanting to press all the keys. I have also managed to have a lollipop stuck in my hair by Herman, the 2 yr old Angolan boy.

I am no longer giving titles

So I am no longer giving titles to my posts because I usually type them late at night or rushed during the day and cannot be bothered with such frivolities. Good word; I know. So I thought today would be an easy- going day, being that I was supposed to take off...but of course at the SACH house it never is. I ended up working the morning shift and helped get ready for group visits for next week which I planned on doing since this was sort of an extra day off this week. In the afternoon I went to see Anna from birthright in Netanya!!!!

I was so happy that I finally figured out transportation in Israel. I took a sherut to Tel Aviv and asked the driver to drop me at the train station so i could get a train there. He said ok and when we got to the bus station he told me to get out and walk 5 minutes "that way" and I would find the train station. BS, I know. I didn't feel like getting lost so I asked him if I could get a sherut to Netanya. He said yes and pointed to a huge lot of sheruts and told me to look there. Mind you he was only speaking hebrew and pointing this whole time. And in case you forgot...I know about ten words in hebrew.

I walked to the giant mess of sheruts and found one that said Netanya on the front in hebrew writing. Hebrew school reading lessons finally paid off. Thanks Mom for all the years of torture (no offense Rabbi J.). The sherut was just arriving and there was a mass of people waiting to get on. My initial instinct was to form a line and wait behind them. Then my newfound Israeli instinct told me to push to the front like everyone else in this country because there are only ten spots on that sherut and a hell of a lot more people trying to get on. I took a deep breath as I sat down while lots of people were screaming in hebrew behind me.

Once on the bus I got smushed between two really big guys who both overflowed into my seat leaving me about 1/2 of a seat in the center. Both of them only spoke hebrew and really wanted to talk to me. I told them about 6 times using the two sentences in hebrew that i know, that I didn't speak hebrew, and I spoke only english. After about the 6th time, I pretended to fall asleep. That plan worked much better. Also everyone here keeps asking me where I'm from and how old I am. So I say New York because half the people don't know NJ...Now I just need to learn how to say 15!!!!!!!!

I just realized that it is actually really late so I will finish the story later because this is only the fun part of the day. Stay tuned for news about the kids.

So I forgot to finish my last post. So I haven't really had the time or energy to post in the last week. I get so hungry and tired that once the day activities are over all I want to do is eat and sleep. Today I was so hungry at lunch after running around at the park for a while and a morning filled with crafts that I couldn't even get a fork to eat my food. All I had time to make in the morning was rice. I didn't finish the chicken or the veggie stewish meal so I just sat down with my pot of rice. I was too exhausted to get up for my fork and ate the plain rice with my fingers like all the kids. They thought it was hilarious...I on the other hand thought it was quite disgusting but I really didn't care at this point. Usually in the house food is not for enjoyment but to force something down your throat so you have the calories in you to continue the day. Then we pig out at night. It was a good thing that Yael wasn't there because I am pretty sure she would have just laughed at me.

This was an eventfull week. So, it never rains in Israel. I hear it happens just about once a year. But when it does rain, it doesn't just rain like it does in NJ or MD...it has a torrential downpour. I actually thought a hurricane might be hitting the Mediterranean or something with super powerful winds that an umbrella was useless. The day this rain started (it lasted several days) Laura went to check the storage room next to Yael and my room to see if the roof was leaking. Rain was just pouring into the room so she told me to check in the corner of our room to see if it was coming through. I opened the door expecting to see a little water in the corner and completely slid across a ginormous puddle covering the whole floor. After cleaning it up, a neighbor came over to fix the roof and we continued with the day.

Later that night, both Yael and I went out to Tel Aviv. We came home to find our room completely flooded again and the water was still coming in. We decided that no matter what we did the water would still leak in all night and that if we cleaned it up or not (at 3am) we would still wake up in a flooded room. So we just went to sleep and dried our feet with towels before getting into bed. The next day Yosef, our neighbor came and fixed it this time and it held. No more flooding, but we still had to clean it up yet again.

But that is not the end of the rain saga. We went to the hospital with most of the children the next day for echo (like ultrasound of the heart). We had to take several cabs back to the house and Yael and I took the last cab a few minutes after all the mothers and children. We were messing around a bit as we tried to stay under the umbrella in the midst of the storm. We had just walked through the front and up to the stairs when we heard a hige crash behind us. We turned around to see a huge tree laying across the front path where we had just walked only seconds before. Just another day at the SACH house...

Since the tree that almost hit us had fallen across our yard into the neighbors,we spent that afternoon in the rain carrying branches and pieces of wood out of the neighbors yard. Eventually it got too cold and Laura sent us all in and her husband came back to finish the job the next day.