Life in Ecuador

Things are changing a lot right now. Changes in living situations, and changes in me. First of all, I was supposed to be moving to a new family in an entirely different region of Ecuador this Thursday, September 1st. Ali and I went with a couple of our friends to see the new town last weekend, and we met our new host moms and saw our new houses. We spent the night a few minutes away from our new town in a really cute cabin where there were hot springs. The weekend was fun, but both Ali and I realized that we had no desire to move there. Before we came to Ecuador we made a plan to live with one host family for a month and a half, and another family for a month and a half. A few weeks into living with our current host families we changed that plan and decided to live with our current families for two months and the other families for only one month.  But now we want to change the plan yet again.  All these changes in plans are not because of flakiness or indecisiveness, but our experiences made our priorities change.  We feel that we are finally getting to know our host families, and they have really become like family to us here. Language barriers prevented us from connecting with our families quickly in the beginning and now that we have finally built close relationships with them, we don´t want to leave. I want to continue to grow with the family I have now. I feel like I have finally broken down the walls of language and cultural differences with them and I want to continue to grow closer with them, rather than picking up and leaving to go to a new place and have to start all over again with a new family. We talked to the directors of our organization and we worked out a compromise where we will move to the new families for the first two weeks of September, and then move back to our current families to finish out the last two weeks of September. I´m not sure how I feel about moving for those two weeks, but it is definitely a compromise that I am willing to agree to and the experience could be really amazing.

As happy as I am here, I have been having a hard time the last several days.  I am not homesick, and I don´t have a desire to be back in my life at home. However, I think I am just realizing more and more the absence of the people that I love back home. I truly have the most amazing family, friends, and boyfriend and lately I have just been noticing the void of their presence in my every day life. I am not as lonely as I was the first month but I definitely miss having my days filled with people who know me and love me, and who I know and love. Thankfully however, the relationship that I have with my host family is growing so much and they are truly starting to feel like family. When I came back yesterday after being gone all weekend I can´t even explain how good it felt. I felt like I was really coming home ... to a family who loves me and a house that I know. And I am so thankful that I have Ali here as well. She is such an amazing friend and provides so much comfort and support for me. I love being on this adventure with her.

It is also really hard for me to be so far away when I have friends going through so many things back home. I can´t seperate my friends´pain from my pain, so trying to be present in my life here while friends are hurting back home is just not happening. My thoughts are filled with people back home and everything that they are going through, and it is just hard to be so far away. Not that I would be able to change anything or even offer much support if I were back home, but there is just something that feels better about being in the same country as them. I am trying to send love and support from hundreds (thousands?) of miles away and just pray, pray, pray. I told my host family about how I was sad to be away from a particular friend who is going through some very sad times with family, and they told me to send a smoke signal. They´re funny.

I feel like there is always so much I could write about on here, but I don´t think it is all necessary :) I am missing you all a TON ... and I have pictures that I will try to post soon! love love love you all!