Monday in Ecuador was quite the adventure. We started our day by walking down the street to get a McBreakfast. We've been to McDonald's in the United States, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, England, and now Ecuador. They are all a bit different, but it's pretty great that you can order food on the screens in any language you prefer.
When I was last in Ecuador on my mission, "The Lion King" debuted in theaters. My companion and I got a tape of the music and we knew the songs backward and forward, even though we hadn't seen the show. We even got into a disagreement about whether or not the main character was a boy or a lion. We honestly didn't know. Now 25 years later while in Ecuador, "El Rey Leon" was released. We didn't take the time to see it--I would have to wait to get home to see it just like when on my mission.
Before leaving the city, we met up with our group, including another family who would join us for our service. We stopped at the LDS temple before we left for the beach. Next to the temple is a good-sized building that housed the mission president's office, the temple president's residence, and some housing for people who must travel to attend the temple. We almost couldn't get in because it was a Monday and the temple was closed. Jeremy Wood talked to the guard who said he would need the temple president's approval to open the gate. Jeremy asked him to call him, and sure enough he let us in to walk around. There were grounds people taking care of the plants and cleaning, so we walked around and got some pictures before driving to the beach. It was beautiful.
On our way to the beach, we saw a huge Dole banana plantation along the road and also enjoyed seeing billboards of things in Spanish. We arrived in Salinas and went to Nari's house. This is one of the houses Jeremy built a few years ago. Nari was our builder and had already begun building the houses (yes two houses). He had begun with the foundations and we would be building the walls. At their home, Logan got to see a bunch of plantains. They look like a banana but are starchy and taste more like a potato. There are lots of ways to cook/prepare them and they can be really good.
Nari and his wife fed us lunch. We ate fish and plantain chips. Logan didn't got back for seconds.
We jumped right into working and spent the afternoon building some walls for the home we would be building. It was in a very poor area with just cane shacks. A woman and her two children lived there in a cane shack. Her husband left her and she worked to provide for her children. A neighbor who looked about 14 years old (and was a mother herself) babysat the children. There was a single hose taking water into the house and the floor was dirt. Our job was to build a cement house for this family right behind their current cane house.
We had a couple of stations and built the walls in groups. We also formed a chain to bring the blocks from the front part of the property to the back where we were building the house. Also we took the water hose from the house to help make our mortar. This is the woman we were building the house for. While she was very poor, her iPhone 10 was newer than the phones of any of the people working on the house.
Kelly was one of the women in our group. When she saw how poor everyone was, she went to a store and bought all the dolls she could to give to the children (including the babysitter). The children swarmed her car to get the toys.
Here are the children inside their house playing with the toys. I only went in once. I didn't dare go in any further, because someone told us they found lice in the house.
It was dirty work building the houses. After our first afternoon, Logan and I checked into our quarters and got cleaned up. Jeremy and his family were going to stay at Nari's, and we stayed with another local family (the wife was Nari's sister). The rest of our group stayed in a small hotel in Santa Elena.
We rejoined the group at Nari's house for dinner. His wife was so kind and generous. The food was pretty local and Logan didn't love it, but we appreciated her kindness.
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After dinner we drove into the downtown area and played at a really fun park. We rented these four-wheeled bicycles and had a blast riding around.
These are the other two 15 year old boys who came to Ecuador to help. They are from Las Vegas and are both named Parker. Logan had a nice time hanging out with these kids.
Back at our room, we had the full treatment with mosquito nets to sleep under. The home had decorative brick in the walls that had holes. Bugs could easily fly in, so we slept under these nets so we wouldn't get bit.
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