Getting to Our New Home

Ariel's thoughts are in Black. Stephanie's in blue. Ashley in orange. And Kaitlyn in purple. We'll post more soon. :-)

Hey everyone! So we’re now officially living in Ecuador…well for a bit at least. :-) The trip to get here was quite eventful. Ashley, Kaitlyn, and Ariel left Ohio last Wednesday to fly to Miami. An older brother, “Uncle” Don picked us up from the airport. We also met his wife, Maureen. They were such a sweet couple. Don took us girls out to dinner and then to the assembly hall where we had the privilege of staying(!!!). It was very strange to be the only 3 people in the assembly hall and be able to walk and look around. It was very nice and we appreciated it very much.

Uncle Don and Aunt Mo

The next morning, Don picked us up and took us to the airport. We got there about 3 hours before our flight and good thing we did!! We had a bit of a problem with our luggage and only got our boarding passes 45 min before we had to be at the gate. We got there with about 10 min to spare. We flew into Quito, where we went through customs. Ariel and Kaitlyn were worried about customs but it went by very quickly and easily. The Quito airport is pretty sketchy, but thankfully we had no problems. We landed in Guayaquil around 11pm(12 Ohio time). Stephanie was there already and came to the airport with the couple we were staying with, Jonathan and Estefani, and another couple, Johnny and Gaby.

Us girls at Jonathan and Estefani's

Stephanie’s trip to Ecuador was a little different than the girls. She flew directly from Ohio to Guayaquil on Wednesday. It was a long day of short flights and layovers (4 total). Fortunately, Stephanie was able to fly first class with her airline miles. It was really nice not to worry about baggage. It also presented her with a unique witnessing opportunity.

On her last leg into Ecuador a young guy came and sat next to her. As all of the other plane passengers boarded they were shrieking and wanting to take pictures with this guy, because, as Steph found out later, he is part of a pretty popular singing duo in South America “Chino y Nacho.” He asked why she was going to Ecuador and she explained that she was one of Jehovah‘s Witnesses and was coming to preach for a year. He had some interesting questions about why there is suffering and death and they talked a little about God’s purpose for human beings and the Our Father Prayer. A little while later, we were interrupted, but she’s glad she had the chance to talk with him. We don’t imagine he often is found in the house to house ministry. J

Nacho is the one with the shaved head.

Ari’s main thought of Guayaquil is BOILING HOT! Just going from the airport to the parking lot felt like walking through a sauna, and this was at 11 at night! The heat means that you wake up pretty early cause it’s just so hot. We all got about 5 hours of sleep Thursday night.
Even though now in Cuenca, Ariel’s number one saying is “I miss Guayaquil”. She’s out of her mind completely. Cuenca is amazing and not so hot you have to do everything at night. Even though they do everything at night anyways.

On Friday morning, we went to Estefani’s grandfather’s funeral. He had just passed away on Wednesday. Jonathan and Estefani are such a loving couple. Even though this happened, they still let us stay with them and went out of their way to be hospitable. The funeral was very much like an American one. The main difference was after the talk, everyone walked to the gravesite. We stayed there until they buried the casket and completely seal it up. So just longer than an American funeral.

Afterwards, we went out to eat with Estefani’s family. Ariel and Stephanie tried seco de chivo, which is rice with goat parts. Kaitlyn and Ashley had rice with shrimp. It was all muy delicioso. (Oh! That morning, Jonathan’s mom had made us a Colombian bread called arepa. It has a certain type of flour cooked with cheese on a grill. It too was amazing!) After lunch, we took a taxi to Bethel. It was about 45 min outside of the city. It was very neat to us to see how uniform Jehovah’s organization is. It was just like visiting Bethel back home, just smaller. Our tour guide was Becky, a sister originally from Wales, who has lived in Ecuador for a pretty long time. Her husband and her attend the sign language congregation in Guayaquil.

Some pictures of Ecuador inside of Bethel

The main building

Becky posing with her car

After the tour, Estefani’s brother in law, who is a Bethelite, drove us back to the apartment. It was 7 at this point and we hadn’t eaten anything since lunch at 2pm. Jonathan and Estefani weren’t home yet, so we just had to wait in the apartment downstairs that belongs to Jonathan‘s parents.
While we waited, we learned how to make arepa and we had a chance to get to know Jonathon’s mom well. Jonathan and Estefani got home, and after much confusion in plans (a fruitless stop at McDonalds), we finally ate about 9:30 at a sweltering taco stand on the side of the road. Haha.

After that, we drove to meet Johnny and Gabi who then took us to the Malecon 2000, a park similar to Newport on the Levee. Two friends from the Chinese group in Guayaquil also went with us. Near the Malecon is this giant hill that has 444 steps to get to the top where you can see the whole city. We were VERY tired at this point(It was 10:30) but we decided we would climb to the top because Johnny and Gaby really wanted us to see it. The last 20 or 30 steps, Steph and I(Ashley) raced a brother from the Chinese group to get to the top, just to show you how much energy we now had haha. And I (Kaitlyn) came in last what a surprise! Despite the late hour and our lack of energy we were very glad to make it all the way to the top. It was beautiful! We took a lot of pictures up there and just had a really good time.

Halfway up!!!

View of Guayaquil

Johnny, Kailtyn, and Gaby climbing down the lighthouse stairs. They were very steep!

Another view of the city.

Why is there an anchor on top of a hill? We have no idea...

Cristi, Christian, Kaitlyn, Ashley, Ariel, Stephanie, and Gaby "rowing" a boat.

On the way back down the 444 steps, Steph and Ashley were on a casero hunt. It’s this really delicious ice cream with fruit mixed in but it’s on a popsicle stick. I(Ashley) wish we had it in the States. Sadly Kaitlyn couldn’t eat one. Anyway, that put us out a wee bit late but totally worth it. We eventually got back to the apartment around 1:30 am. We had to be up the next morning before 9 because that is when our shuttle was coming to take us to Cuenca.

Saturday morning- Well…this is Ecuador, so our shuttle didn’t arrive until 9:40. We started to load our luggage into the van, when the driver started to have a fit. He told us we had too much luggage and we’d have to rent another van. Please note, this van, which we had rented the entire thing, was meant for 8 passengers and the driver. He just was being difficult. After a 45 minute discussion (and by that I mean argument), where police may or may not have been involved(read as most definitely were), we finally loaded our luggage and got on our way. All of us were worried about driving with him after the whole ordeal, but he was a surprisingly good driver by Ecuador standards. Although when going around turns, he was going so fast his tires would squeal, so yes, scary . And at one point a balloon, that was our welcome sign at the airport, busted because of the altitude and we’re pretty sure the driver thought he popped a tire. We were especially worried because on the ride home from the airport, when we first arrived in Guayaquil, Gaby told Ashley a news story about how a bus driver got inpatient waiting for the brothers after an assembly very recently, and he ended up being so angry that he crashed the bus. He ended up killing a few people and injuring many more. It was a very sad story, but the brothers of course have been visiting the families, helping when they can. Jehovah always takes care of us. It took us about 3 hours to get to Cuenca, safe and sound.

We arrived around 2pm and Allison (Steph’s cousin) was waiting in the apartment to welcome us. She had come by to let us in but also took really good care of us by making us lunch and coffee and bringing us some staples to get by until we could make it to the store. After catching up for a while, Allison left and Ashley, Ariel and Stephanie went on a walk around the block to get to know our new neighborhood. Welcome to Cuenca!