Daily rhythm

Life here is starting to take on a rhythm. During the week, the girls don their uniforms, eat a quick breakfast and arrive at school by 7:10. Most of their classes are taught in Spanish, and they struggle to comprehend. Often, they find time during the day to read (or should I say, “re-read”) books they brought from the States and work on their math curricula that we brought with us. They look forward to their two recess periods, where they eat “doditos” (hotdogs wrapped in fried dough—their favorite!) and walk around the school yard. We pick them up from school at 2:10, and come home to el almuerzo, the main meal prepared by Shirley, our wonderful cook. Everyone in our family loves Shirley’s cooking. El almuerzo is always a nourishing and relaxing time together. We have even modified our mealtime prayer, “Gracias a Dios por este comida Buena, la familia y amigos tambien. Amen”
While the girls are at school on the days that Rob is not at a hospital, we have our own routine. We try to decipher “el universo” newspaper over a second cup of coffee, we go for a run on the beach, and then we have time to do ONE thing before picking up the girls at 2:10. For example, one day we needed to make photocopies of some of our documents to open a bank account. The photocopying process took no less than 2 hours at the local photocopy store. But each of these time-consuming outings is entertaining and we always learn something new about our town, about the culture or about the language we are desperately trying to learn.
Rob loves working at the hospitals, especially the one in Guayaquil. For the past few weeks, he has left on Monday morning, stayed overnight at the hospital and returned home the next day in time to give an educational talk to some local doctors. He usually takes Wednesday off, and makes a round trip to Guayaquil on Thursday. Each time he comes back from Guayaquil, he is armed with exciting medical tales and he is able to speak/understand so much more Spanish.
I have begun working again, and the working conditions are nearly ideal! My internet connection is pretty good, but not especially fast. This slower speed is somewhat of a blessing because lengthy downloads provide time for me to pause and gaze at the beach, the fishing boats and the Pacific Ocean. Also, I have much more uninterrupted time since I don’t have to worry about cooking or cleaning.
When I’m not working, I have lengthy conversations in Spanish with Shirley. I often make two cups of coffee and chat with her in the kitchen while she prepares a meal . I call her “mi profesora” a term that makes her giggle. Shirley is such a gift to us. She is bright, loving, caring, honest and hardworking. She is patient with my Spanish. Her only fault is that she doesn’t correct me nearly enough! Too polite, I guess. The other day she said to me that she felt like we were a gift from God to her. I told her the same, and we both had tears in our eyes.
Our weekends are spent taking the girls to sailing practice or regattas. The facilities and the coaches are amazing here, and we are certainly getting the royal treatment. Our friend is the rear commodore and he has extended the invitation for us to use the yacht club, in recognition of Rob’s service in the Ecuadorian medical community. Everyone who we meet is so generous to us—lots of dinner invitations and offers to help us navigate through tricky negotiations, such as buying a car. We even have our own Lightning boat to sail, and someone else let us borrow a guitar for the year.
Having lived in Salinas for nearly two months, with a few day trips here and there, we’re starting to get the traveling bug! So, we have just booked a 4 night stay in Cuenca, a colonial city about 4 or 6 hour drive away. We didn’t bring enough warm clothing for some of the chilly evenings in Salinas, so we definitely don’t have enough for Cuenca since it is in a mountainous and chilly region. I guess we’ll be doing a little shopping while we’re there!