9 Buses, Muchos Chinos & Only a Handful of More Bugbites Later

And we're back!  El Grupo de Chino Cuenca spent last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday inviting Chinese speaking people who live in the southern towns of the jungle here in EC to the Memorial.  And yes, there are Chinese speaking people in the jungle.  Why?  Because while the eastern part of Ecuador is in fact covered by the lush, tropical, real live Amazon Rain Forest, that doesn't mean that people don't live there and if you drive long and far enough through all that greenery you won't find perfectly civilized cities...eventually.  Most of those cities have between 3 & 6 Chinese locations, or more specifically businesses like stores where they sell stuff like clothes, shoes, purses and more or sometimes they have restaurants (by the way, we have the same kind of stores in Cuenca). 

This is probably a good time to introduce the 3 newest members of the Grupo de Chino.  Ivan, our fearless leader, was successful in recruiting a new family - really good news!  They are the Muñoz Family and they consist of Fausto, Jazmin and their 12 year old daughter Anita.  So now our numbers are back up to 9!  And all of us, well almost all of us (poor Anita had to stay back due to school) were able to share in this whirl-wind adventure.  So, there was Ivan, Manolo, Paola & Fernanda (the twins), Jenny, Fausto & Jazmin and me.  And our mission was to locate and invite!

We left for our first destination, which was Loja, by bus at 7 a.m. on Monday morning.  Loja is not actually in the jungle but it's a city south of Cuenca (also located in the mountains).  It took about 4 hours to get there so as you can imagine by the time we arrived and got settled in, it was lunch time.  We ate at a really yummy Mexican restaurant owned by a brother and after we were finally fueled up, we were all ready to go!  We had the help of a sweet little sister learning Chinese, Marjorie.  She showed us in the right direction so it was a snap finding all 16 of the Chinese locations there to leave the invitations.  Once we were done, we set off for the next place, the jungle town of Zamora.   Here we met up with a super sweet sister,  Wendy, who's parents own a beautiful hotel right in town - Everlast Hotel - where they graciously allowed us to stay for free and even fed us a hearty breakfast.  Monday night Wendy gave a night tour of town and we even got a tour of inside the Kingdom Hall.  Tuesday morning we were up and at em early in the morning and quickly hit the Chinese locales in the centro.  It didn't take too long, I think there were only 3.  Back to the bus station where we caught one going to Yantzaza.  We arrived mid-day...not the most comfortable time in the jungle.  I seriously thought I might melt right into the bus seats!  So, on the way out, I made an executive decision to buy a drink of cold coconut juice on the bus from a man selling it in individual bags with straws sticking out the top.  This was a pretty big deal for me since usually us gringos try to steer clear of street food...for obvious reasons (Is it obvious??  I don't know?  If not, email me and I'll explain).  So again to the bus and off to 2 more places where there didn't happen to be one single Chino but we did our work and tried to find them.  And guess what's next?  We went again to the bus.  You're probably getting a little sick of hearing that phrase but you can probably imagine how much we were liking the buses right around this time too...They're hot, they're smelly.  Sometimes your seat is broken and in a permanent recline position.  Sometimes there's nowhere to sit.  Sometimes your window is broken and there's just no air.  Sometimes someone throws-up on you...ok that didn't happen this trip but it has happened - twice in fact - once to Jor and once to me.  This time the bus took us far, far, far away to the middle of nowhere....literally.  Jor and I have often marveled when traveling how sometimes the bus stops in the middle of nowhere, and when I say nowhere I mean there is not a building, a road (other than the one you are on), a driveway or usually a person to be seen for miles and miles and miles.  At that point of nowhere, where the bus screeches to a halt, a passenger from the bus gathers their stuff, sometimes together with their family and sometimes alone, exits the vehicle and disappears off into the middle of said nowhere.  Jor and I usually just look at each other in wonder...someone actually lives here?  That is the place that the final bus on Tuesday was taking us - nowhere.  Nowhere was actually Jenny's grandparents' house.  I was sitting next to Jenny on the bus as we sailed down the dark jungle road.  She was apparently looking for a river, she asked us all if we had our stuff and told us to get ready to jump.  When the jumping time came, we did, and we were left by the side of the road and met by a cute little Ecuadorian granny with a flashlight.  We followed her up an embankment, maybe a five minute walk and eventually encountered a "typical" jungle home.  The house was actually a little collection of buildings simply made of wooden slats.  There was a building for the kitchen and eating area, a building for bathroom, and a larger building with 4 bedrooms and a sitting room.  We hung out with grandma and grandpa that night.  And later tucked ourselves into our beds complete with insect nets -  cool!  Wednesday morning we took the ultimate service break - an amazing jungle walk to the river and a dip in the river complete with waterfalls and natural pools!  (check out the pics - we saw such cool stuff http://picasaweb.google.com/dwawak/JungleTour# But the break didn't last all day, for we had more work to do and Fausto had to get back to work by Thursday morning.  So...it was off to the bus by 4 in the afternoon.  First stop of the evening was jungle town Macas and next was Sucua.  We met nice Chinese people in both cities and wrapped up the day around 10:30 p.m.  At that point it was time for the very last bus.  Yep, 10:30 at night and we were about 6 hours from home!  So, our last night was spent on the bus.  The slightly ironic thing was about 13 years ago I took the very same trip - a night bus between Sucua and Cuenca - with Brooke.  And let me tell ya Brooker, that trip has NOT CHANGED.  I slept soundly - just like last time - but every hour or so awoke to the bus lurching and reving up the mountain in what seemed to be a pool of mud.  At one point I woke up to the bus pulled waaaaaay over to the side of the road to let the other traffic pass by - wow - still quite the experience! 

So, all in all, the group did good!  We're hoping for 15 Chinos at the Memorial.  We have about 10 in Cuenca that are almost sure to come.  Hopefully all of our hard work pays off and we have a wonderful turn-out.  As we say in Spanish "Vamos a ver" or "We'll see"!

Oh, and speaking of the Memorial...our Congregation will actually be having a total of 3 Memorials for one congregation.  We have 2 in Spanish, one at 6:30 and one 8, then one at 9:15 in Chinese.  I guess last year the hall was busting at the seams so they're trying something new this year.  I can't wait to post the numbers!

Other News

A.J. gave his first public talk in Spanish today!  He did a great job!

We've also started a Chinese class.  It's every Monday night and mostly for our new members but we can all definitely benefit.  It's especially nice for me because while the class is a Chinese class it's taught in Spanish so while the others are learning how to say "wash your hands" in Chinese, I'm learning how to say it in Spanish!  Nice.

SUPER GOOD NEWS.  We're expecting more visitors.  Teryl and Mike Lynes of Brooklyn Bethel!  We're are so so so excited to see them.  They'll be working at the branch here in Guayaquil for about a month but promised to break away for a long weekend in Cuenca, probably sometime in April.