"Communidad"

This post shall be dedicated to my dear friend Ela who I finally (after more than half a year of silence) got in touch with again :)))))))) Dear Ela, I love you very much!!!!!

Very well, I realized that I've been using this word "Communidad" in order to describe my "place of residence". However, I presume this wouldn't help you to really get an idea of this remote place I ended up in... The reason I've been using this word is that I didn't really know myself what was awaiting me. Well, what does "living in one of these tiny Communidades in the Jungle" mean then? It means no telephone, no Internet, no shops, no nothing. It is one of the many communidades you would pass travelling from one place to the other in Ecuador. At times you can make out a small school (no more than a building but often made of stone) or a small church. Quite often there would be a small polyvalente basketball pitch or something with a roof to give it some shelter from the havy rain (very necessary! It does feel like someone pouring a bucket full of water over you). Our church is made of wood as is the little hut I'm sharing with the Lady working in the kitchen (the ancient hospital) but the inside is full of kitsch and colourful lights (of the kind we would barely use for christmas). The school (7 grades -one class per grade) and the colegio as well as the house of the nuns are made of stone. Moreover the nuns enjoy the luxury of having hot(!) showers which I'm allowed to use, too. However, the first time I arrived there was only cold water and when I yesterday after I'd spent some time in Quito giving one of the nuns' sister a hand moving house, there was no water at all which means, that I'm now bathing like everyone else in the river... In the same way I'm washing my clothes like everyone else in the river (I'd say this is the hardest thing for me living here -everyone including me is polluting this beautiful nature this way -daily! But it's not that there was a choice...). What else: Food, the chicken I had for lunch was the same chicken that I had been watching picking worms in the morning (btw: I gave up beeing a vegetarian -at least for the time being; there is simply no point...). Food is simple (but I'm very happy), bread that the Lady bakes every second day, for lunch some delicious soup with Yuka or or Green Banana (I wish there was Yuka in Germany!) and some simple segundo: rice and something else. In Tena we had meat twice a day but in Talag it seems to be like once a week (remember, there are no shops and we can't slaughter a chicken or dug everyday -we'd run out soon). Not a single one of the kids is anything near fat. Neither the adult people (El Alto, Bolivia was poor, too but somehow the women were all a little bit more than "big"). What else: all kids are always wearing uniform (in "my" school blue ones), all kids have black hair and everyone is very small -for me it's very hard at time to guess their age. Everyone is very eager to talk to me (can be very anoying at times...). My classes are going excellent. I have to afternoon classes a week in Talag and one more in Tena (the city I have to go to in order to use internet, telephone and the like, it's about 45 minutes by bus, 55cents each ride). Ohhhh Nature: I love it!!! When I wake up at around 6 in the morning (school starts at 7), I can watch the fog lifting itself from the forest. There are mountains covered in forest, we have coconuts bigger than footballs, oranges, and other citrus-fruits bigger than footballs, Yuka, bananas, papayas and much more that I can't name, including huge and beautiful flowers right behind the houses in "our garden" -I LOVE IT!!!!!!! Of course there are loads of beautiful places to visit around -I wanna start descovering them one by one, soon. There are beaches, caves, places to watch butterflies or birds early in the morning and so on. What else? I have electricity but rather often it doesn't work and I better had prepared my lessons before it gets dark which means before dinner at 6pm. There are 4nuns and one very old Italian priest who got here 56 years ago when they had to come here from Quito by mule -a many days- trip! He is more than 80 years old and all of his family already died. However every morning at 6 there is the misa -which I normally attend. He is a very very kind and somehow impressive man. Spending so much time praying and especially the many "Ave Marias" (come se dice Rosenkranz en ingles?) somehow makes you believe. Well, I'm very excited to get back to Europe and especially Germany to see what it's like through different eyes. And somehow I have the feeling of getting to know this continent better than I ever got to know my own... Gotta run, many things waiting, xxxxxxxx yours Solveigh