Heading Home

After an amazing six weeks in Ecuador, we are heading back to the States.

Left - Right: Nate, Jeremy, Bill, and Ron and Margie Grant. Ron is the director of grounds maintenance at the MAF base in Shell and we ended up working with him quite a bit. Margie is the principal at Nate Saint Memorial School. The Grants gave us a ride back up to Quito to catch our flight.

Left-Right: Jeremy, Chad and Andi Irwin, Nate. We stayed with the Irwins for the duration of our time in Shell. We had so much fun together and learned a lot from them, as they are in their second term with MAF. Here we're ready to leave for Quito, bags packed, ready to hop in the van. The hardest part of traveling is always the good-byes.

Workin' in the Attic

Today, we were able to work in the attic of the Grant's house. They are a missionary couple who have been here for over 11 yrs. The floor in their attic was full of termites and in need of replacement. We removed the old ply wood and putt in new planks of a certain wood that termites don't eat.

Sam (a volunteer from S. California) and Nate in the attic.

Crafts at 'Casa De Fe' Orphanage

We Spent the afternoon doing crafts with about 10 kids at an orphanage called Casa De Fe. These same kids will live in the new building that we were working at earlier. You can see some pictures from that below.

Tina, Jeremy and Nate.

Casa De Fe Construction Site

Yesterday we had the opportunity to help with the construction of a new orphanage in town. As you can see, we were in the mud grading a sewer line and then back filling.

Palm Beach

Last Friday, we had the opportunity to fly into Toñampade, the Waorani village closest to Palm Beach. Above you can see the Curaray River (the River on which Palm Beach is located) and the airstrip which now serves this Waorani village. We spent much of the morning out at Palm Beach, and then went back to the village where we saw how they weave baskets and got a small glimpse of life in their village. We also got to meet Dayume, the first Waorani Christian. Dayume helped Rachel Saint and Elizabeth Elliot learn the Waorani language, after the five missionaries were killed on Palm Beach. She also helped to translate the Bible, "God's Carvings", into Waorani.

This is the canoe we took downriver to Palm Beach. These canoes are hewn out of a single log by hand. Our guides, one in the front and one in the back, pushed us through the river with 16' bamboo poles.

Bill, Jeremy, Nate and Rosario standing on the sand bar that was once Palm Beach. Rosario is actually a Quechua who married into the Waorani tribe. Her husband is the grandson of Dayume. Despite the fact she couldn't speak English, Rosario was very happy to take us to Palm Beach and even fairly easy to communicate with as she wanted to learn as much English as she could. We spent quite a bit of time afterwards learning phrases from each other's languages and having a lot of fun in the process.

School Benches

A local, Christian school needed some new benches. There was a team from Canada here for a week and we were able to help them with this project.

Yep, they're yellow. We're countersinking the bench top.

Bodega Gutter Project

Here we are, preparing to weld gutter brackets.

After we installed the drainage lines (see pics below), we welded gutter brackets to the bodega and installed two new gutters. this storage place was experiencing constant seepage due to the lack of rain gutters and poor drainage system. This was Nate MIG welding while Jeremy held the bracket in place.

Bodega Drainage Project

Boots and mud make entertaining noises - schlwoorlp! (sp?) :)

For a few days early last week we undertook a drainage project for a large storage shed (bodega). It involved a lot of muddy trench digging and wet clothes. Sometimes Shell is sunny but it rained the whole time we dug. We also had to chip through a concrete wall to install a new drain for the floor where the water would pool.

Nate digging a trench and chipping concrete.

We were installing new drainage lines.

This is Bill.

Bill has a drill.

See Bill drill.

El Altar Expedition

This past weekend we took a trip to Riobamba, a couple of hours from Shell, up in the mountains. We decided that, since it was the weekend, we wanted to see another part of Ecuador as long as we're here now. Traveling around this country is very inexpensive here, compared to the States. Ron Grant, who's in charge of maintenance on the MAF base in Shell, took the three of us in his truck, along with Chantal and Tina, a couple of teachers in Shell. This picture is one of many old Catholic churches in Riobamba.

From Riobamba we drove up to La Hacienda Releche, a small hostal tucked away on the side of El Altar, one of two volcanoes you can see from the MAF hangar in Shell. We had called ahead and made reservations to stay here and take the mules up to the lake in the crater at the top the next day. It was a beautiful afternoon when we arrived, and the hostal, aside from being quite photogenic itself, was situated with a picturesque view of the Andes.

This was the balcony on the second floor, overlooking the walled area in front of the hostal. Downstairs there was a large room with a fireplace where we sat and talked and had a great evening together. We had dinner with the host family, which consisted of a soup and rice, beans, some vegetables and a piece of beef. Very typical, very good. After dinner we went back to the fireplace and talked until late into the night. We also had breakfast with them the next morning and they even served coffee (instant but hey, you get what you can, right?).

On the way up El Altar.

After a three-hour mule ride, Nate, Bill and I hiked another hour and a half or so to the crater lake at the top. It was up around 14,000 ft., so it was a fairly difficult hike but well worth the effort. While we were up there we saw a small avalanche as part of the glacier melted and went plummeting into the lake. We felt very small.

Our guide, Angel (pronounced "On-hayl" in Spanish)

The smoke from Tungurahua, a volcano a little ways north of Shell. Even aside from our time here experiencing life in missions in Shell, it's been an amazing experience seeing God's creation in this beautiful country!

There and back again (Another journey to Salasaca)

We made another trek to Salasaca (the Quechua mountain town where we did the puppet ministry, tucked into the Andes about an hour and a half northwest of Shell), this time to help out with building an add-on to the church there. We were working with Shed and Chris Waskosky again, and the members from the church and community who were undertaking the project. Nate and I have both had some experience in construction in the States, but we were both in for a surprise to see what it takes for a building to go up here. More on that a couple of pics down. The two guys in the above pic are (left - right) Marcelo and Ignacio. We were working on the church with these guys and, in our limited Spanish we found out that they are both weavers. They invited over to see them weave that evening, which explains the following pictures.


Ignacio wanted to teach us how to weave, so we each got a shot at it which was great fun! Yes, we are now all professional weavers and will be taking orders on a first-come, first-serve basis when we get back to the States :) . It's a tedious task, but these guys are so fast and do beautiful work. It was so fascinating to watch them at work, especially after experiencing firsthand how difficult it really is (they make it look so easy).



Ignacio is coaching Nate through the maze of strings and yarn, weaving yet another colorful masterpiece. I'm pretty sure he had even more fun than we did watching us clumsy gringos make an attempt at his profession.

The artist at work. The hat he is wearing is a tradition Salasacan hat (as are the rest of his clothes), and it weighs about four pounds. We all got to try it on. It's very small and you have to consciously focus on balancing it or it will just fall right off. But to these guys it's just natural and they wear it without thinking about it.

We all decided that Bill was a natural Salasacan and should probably just dress that way all the time.

This is a very common sight here, a Quechua woman sitting at her stall in the mercado, or preparing a meal, or walking down the street while spinning her wool in to thread. It's an art and they have it perfected. This will later be woven into a colorful shawl or a pancho or maybe a tapestry like Ignacio and Marcelo specialize in making.

Another common sight here in Salasaca: a traditionally dressed elderly Salasacan man. Note the traditional hat again. After wearing one I can't believe how these people just walk around all day balancing those things on their heads without even thinking about it. It's such a trademark of this culture.

So back to my previous comment about how different construction is here compared to the States. Almost everything here is done in concrete rather than wood (termites are a big problem here). The rebar which you see myself and some new Salasacan freinds tying together essentially provides the strength of the structure. The concrete will be poured in and around the rebar, making the form of the structure. Each intersection of rebar has to be wire-tied by hand, a tedious task and quite time-consuming until you do it enough times to develop a system and get in a groove. Too bad there wasn't an arc welder lying around...

A Salasacan farmer and his farm hands on their way home.

What can I say? You got to do what you got to do. This farmer apparently couldn't afford a truck but hey, why buy a truck if a motorcycle does everything you need to do? Makes sense to me. Motorcycles are very heavily utilized here. Not too long ago I saw a family of four on their way somewhere, all stacked (some would say precariously) on their family motorcycle. Whatever works.

These people are so friendly! They were very appreciative of our help, even if they did have to coach us in their ways of construction. We all had a great time, despite the language barrier. Most all of them spoke Spanish pretty well, but our Spanish was pretty rough (and our Quechua even rougher). It was a great experience and gave me a huge appreciation for the importance of language acquisition.

Here's the finished project. These are several of the main supports which will be stood up on top of the footer substructure and, after the forms have been built around them, will be filled with concrete. They had to make fourteen of these, all by hand, wire-tying each intersection of rebar. It was a pretty amazing project to take part in and gave me a huge appreciation for welders and other, more technologically advanced tools we all take for granted back home.

Our grand trek to the North Repeater

The view from near the top of the repeater tower was pretty amazing. This is the view off into the flatlands of the jungle. The Andes are behind me. Off in the distance you can see the town of Shell. You can kind of see that it's split in half by a small river. The airport/military base is essentially the right half. You can barely make out the runway in the middle of the right half. The town in the foreground is Mera (hence the name Shell-Mera) and the large river on the right is the Pastaza.

This is the shelter for the repeater equipment. We were very grateful for this humble shelter because within minutes after we finally reached it we encountered a downpour of typical rainforest intensity (and, thankfully, brevity). Bruce and Robert (the avionics techies) got right to work on the repeater, and we waited out the rain and then did small tasks like washing the solar panels and cleaning up around the place (and climbing the repeater tower; don't worry Mom, we tied ourselves to the top of the tower before taking pictures).

The intrepid explorers, ready to embark on yet another adventure. From left: Nate, me, Robert (MAF avionics techy), Bruce (another MAF techy) and Palivio (a friend of the MAF guys who went along). You can see by the smiles on our faces that this was definitely a "before" picture :) Okay, it wasn't all that bad, but it was a pretty difficult trek up the mountain through the mud (note the rubber boots) and the jungle while carrying backpacks with our food, supplies and tools as well as the two ladders you see leaning against me and Robert. It was grand, though not half as grand as dinner and our beds that evening!

Today we're heading out to a radio repeater up in the mountains a little way from Shell. For those of you who may be less acquainted with radio operations, a repeater essentially takes a signal from a radio (in this case the radio at the MAF base in Shell) and re-broadcasts it, so that the signal can travel much farther than it could otherwise. MAF utilizes two such repeaters here and we're going to the closer one today to do some maintenance on it. It should just be a day trip. There's talk of heading out to the jungle repeater in a couple of weeks, which would take three or four days, we'll see. We have to head out, more later.

~Jeremy for the crew

Walking around Banos.

Pailon del Diablo (The Devil's Punchbowl)

On our way up to a water fall look-out, we went through a little cave!