Exploring

On Thursday we took the volunteers on a field trip to Ingapirca. We pulled over to take a couple of photos.

A couple of animals slowed down our travels...

so Lee and I decided to get out of the car and walk with them.

but that still didn't make them move much quicker.

We finally arrived to Ingapirca, the largest well-preserved Incan ruins in Ecuador.

Negro and Danika finishing up lunch. Negro accompanies us on all our field trips.




Negro and Lee


Lee trying on a mask at the little tourist shops.

Lee snapped this photo out the window of the car as we left Incapirca and headed to the city of Biblian.

Exploring continued...

After visiting the ruins we head south for about an hour (back along the same route) to the city of Biblián to visit the Iglesia de Biblián, also called the Church in the Rock. This church is a church that is built into a huge rock on the mountainside and is quite fascinating to see and explore. Some of the church’s walls are pure, raw rock—the church was just built around it! We climbed the stairs up to the top of the mountain where we could see the cities of Biblián and Azogues.

The view of Azogues

This view of Biblián

Below Lee is looking for the best foot holds to support his climb.

WRESTLING

Friday, Lee and I went to the orphanage. When we arrived Lee chose to attend a meeting for the staff to learn safety skills taught by a local fireman. In the mean time, I was left to hold down the house with three other volunteers. We gathered the children to have a dance. One minute we were doing the macarena and all of a sudden, Cristian lowers himself from his wheelchair, crawls over to Martin and pulls him out of his wheelchair. The two of them wrestled for 10 minutes straight. It was hilarious. The other children we laughing and cheering them on.

Finally they stopped and appeared to be finished. Actually they were just looking for fresh meat. Martin and Cristian crawled over to where I was innocently sitting and pulled me to the ground.

Cristian and Martin were laughing so hard that they never had a chance to closed their mouths. And as a result I was covered in their drool! Oh, I love these boys.

Great volunteers

A new group of volunteers arrived Sept 9th and they are so much fun!We were so grateful they chose to come and serve at this time because for a while we were really hurting. Before they arrived Julie, Leslie and Ashley were the only volunteers here for a couple of weeks. Now our group growing and we will welcome 3 more in the beginning of October.
Top Row: Jordan, Anna, Julie, Laura
Bottom row: Maddy, Eliza, Leslie, Kate, Maggie and Ashley

This is Anna, she is from St. George Utah and will be here until Feb 27th 2011.

Friday night we played games for Jordan's 21st birthday

and mischievousLEE made sure that she enjoyed the first piece of cake.

Zip-lining with Martin

Thursday Lee and I were preparing to take the volunteers out for the scheduled field trip, zip-lining, when I asked Lee a optimistic question. " Will the orphanage allow us to take Martin zip-lining today?" And within the hour Lee had arranged for Martin to come along.

Martin is 13 years old and has cerebral palsy although he cannot speak he is very attentive and finds other ways to communicate.

Martin arrived at our house around noon and hung out with us in our apartment until 1:30pm. We listened to music and look at old photos. Martin especially liked seeing pictures of my blonde hair and Lees long hair. When we arrived at the course the employees were a little hesitate when they saw us get out of the van with a wheel chair. They asked us how it would be possible to take him and warned us that there were portions of the course were we would have to hike. We assured them that we would be responsible for taking care of him.

The first zip-line is short and so we used it to see if Martin wished to continue.

He LOVED it and had no fear so we continued on through the remaining 5 zip-lines. After a couple of runs one girl asked Martin if he was scared at all. He shook his head no then smiled and pointed to Lee. To which she said, " Oh I see, you are not scared because you are with Lee, is that what you mean?" Martin, smile grew bigger and he shock his head yes. Martin enjoyed watching the volunteers take their turn and hear them scream.

Playing at the Orphanage

Lee and Martin arm wrestling


Danika and Laura Dancing to a Justin Bieber song

To watch a video when Lee tried to shoot Laura and Danika dancing, but Martin ended up blocking the shot click here

To watch another video of Cristian and Laura dancing click here

Ana Maria helping Edison to dance in his wheelchair.

Family Home Evening

Every Monday night we take turns with the Roseros teaching a Family Home Evening lesson and preparing an activity. We always look forward to this private time that we get to spend with the Roseros outside of work. This week was our turn, so Lee prepared the lesson and I prepared the activity. Lee based his lesson on the following quote:

"A young man came to Socrates one time and said, 'Mr. Socrates, I have come 1,600 miles to talk to you about wisdom and learning.' He said, 'You are a man of wisdom and learning, and I would like to have you teach me how to be a man of wisdom and learning.' Socrates said, 'Come follow me,' and he led the way down to the seashore. They waded out into the water up to their waists, and then Socrates turned on his friend and held his head under the water. His friend struggled and kicked and bucked and tried to get away, but Socrates held him down. … And after this man had stopped struggling, Socrates laid him out on the bank to dry, and he went back to the market place. After the young man had dried out a little bit, he came back to Socrates and find out the reason for this rather unusual behavior. Socrates said to him, 'When your head was under the water, what was the one thing you wanted more than anything else?' And the man said, 'More than anything else, I wanted air.' Socrates said, 'All right, when you want wisdom and learning like you wanted air, you won't have to ask anybody to give it to you."(Elder Sterling W. Sill, "The Five Fingers of Leadership Success," in Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [9 Feb. 1965], 9).

The discussion was inspiring, the activity was odd and totally hilarious. We used scotch tape to deform our faces. Where did I learn this? My father of course.

Owens style
One evening, when I was around 13 years old, each of us siblings stood in line waiting to have Dad contort our faces with tape. We laughed and laughed as we rehearsed the phrase we were told to tell our mother. Finally it was time for the big reveal and when mom came in the room we yelled, "THIS is what we would have look like had you married another man, Its a good thing you married Dad!"

Roseros/Rogers style
Here Sammy is taping up her brothers face....

Lee and Sammy taping up my face....

The end result for me....

The end result for Ishmael

Mischievous Lee

Our apartment is - for lack of a better term - a mega phone. Not only can we hear everything the volunteers talk about when they are in the kitchen or the laundry room but they can hear us as well. For example, if we are listening to music downstairs in our apartment at a moderate volume the sound carries up to the upper level and amplifies the volume. I am very sensitive about this and am always reminding Lee to be quieter, whether in regular conversation or even in more quiet, private discussions. He thinks it´s hilarious and uses it to purposely embarrass me.

If Lee gives me a sweet kiss on the cheek and it makes a lip-smacking sound, I thank him for the kiss and then remind him to not make a lip smacking sound so that we don’t disturb the volunteers. To this he grins mischievously and runs circles in our living room giving loud, lip smacking kisses to the air. Everyone can hear him, but alas, I cannot make him grow up.

PS – Lee was involved in the editing of this post, so he knows full well how I feel about this.