Koro

Hey everyone.

I know I havent blogged much, But I was sending emails today and realized there was a lot on my mind. I thought it would be worth putting on my blog.

First off, this weekend was awesome. My group went to a remote place in the sierra of Ecuador called Intag which is in the cloud forest. There are so many absolutely beautiful places here. The Cloud forest is like a jungle/forest that is high up so often there is cloud mist through it. It is very mountainous and very very green. We stayed at a center where some locals and activists live who are trying to preserve the forest from the very destructive effects of mining.

We went on this walk for 3-4 hours! In the jungle jungle. It is actually more like forest, but nonetheless amazing. We climbed a small waterfall even, oh my gosh I was in heaven. And the walk was super hard which made it even better. It was full of giant leaf plants, all sorts of cool bugs, unique small birds, we pretty much followed this small river the whole way, there were unique flowers and it was so steep everywhere. There were even tree vines like in tarzan! It was really magical and the group had a great time.

The place we were staying was really cool too.They had like a small farm where they grew their own food, and food for their animals and had different natural techniques for fertilization like using human waste. I bathed in a waterfall which was sooo sweet and also freeeezing.

The other awesome thing was I really bonded with everyone. In case you don't remember there are 11 in the group; 5 boys and 6 girls. We played partner hearts (Hearts is a 4 person card game, but we played with partners and 5 groups) and it was so fun. So fun. We also just talked a lot, sitting in hammocks watching ping ping matches on the ping pong table they had. I got to get to know some people I hadn't gotten a chance to really talk to yet.

Lastly we stopped in a town called Otavalo and were able to do some shopping. I got some pretty hott stripped cloth pants and some other small things. There are a million times more handicrafts here than in Africa which is really fun.

Oh.... I forgot to mention the food. My first two weeks with my host family have been rough. First I had a parasite from Uganda, then I had stomach inflammation immediately afterwards. But now that I am better... not throwing up and all that stuff... I can EAT! And the food in Intag was AMAZING. Everything was natural, grown either on the farm or in the area, and just delicious. I could feel the health pouring out of my skin. So so good.

Despite all this, I have been really challenged. The hard part for me is my mind; everything I think is turned upside down.

My director Fabio is an anthropologist and has done a lot of research with indigenous people. His PhD thesis was on cosmology in a very indigenous community and basically he said that he concluded that the work of missionaries was “cultural genocide.” It’s hard because my motives for caring about the environment and social problems are really different and there are a lot of conflicting ideas. But what he says really is true. Missionaries really do damage sometimes and certainly changing I lifestyle to follow Christ will change culture. I’m just struggling on what cause I want to live for, what it really means to be living for Christ.

I feel like in the Christian culture, people really really value being reckless and just going for it and leaving everything up to God and telling people all about Jesus no matter what because it is the truth. But really… there is a bit of truth in what non-Christians say. What if you really do have to be careful? I mean in the past missionaries have really been destructive, and who says they still aren’t now? M mind is all over the place… who is right? Where is the balance? Where is the line? Are people more important than the earth? What is good living? After being in Uganda for so long, this has really been a challenging mental and spiritual adjustment,

There seem to always be contractions I see in people’s motives to better developing countries. People want political and economic stability, which of course requires development and planning… people want electricity and transportation and education and opportunity. But activists also want to preserve culture, preserve the environment and preserve simplicity of life…. All things that I totally love. But how do you do both? For example in Ecuador, if you want to stop the people from mining because it will kill the environment, but you also want to travel to the city and have more opportunity and wire your house so you have light, all which require copper, how can you flight for both?

That is why I think God really can be the only solution. When I see problems in the world, I keep seeing more and more sides. A problem that has 4 sides turns into a problem that has 8, then 12, then dozens and dozens more factors come into play. Then it just becomes one big circle, or one big mess where everything is intertwined. How can a single person or a single idea or a entity solve any problem to the fullest? It’s impossible. That’s why I am glad I have the peace of knowing a savior. Despite all my efforts and all my future aspirations to help the world, ultimately the most I can do is just give my trust to God. I think, I hope, I pray, that he can do a lot more than me. And of course, I trust in the fact that he has complete control. Maybe things seem on the edge, but in the end things can’t go over the edge. Because even dying isn’t the end, I have hope for eternity in peace. But at the same time, I want to be responsible in how I live my life and the way that I affect others. Yeah... basically my head is a mess.

Thank you for listening... I hope this post wasn't too complicated. Below are some pictures from Intag. they are the best... but its a little taste. Also I put a couple of when I went camping with my host brother at Quilotoa... a GORGEOUS lagoon that used to be a volcano. So amazing.

This is Quilotoa where I camped with my host brother and his friends. It is amazing! We camped down next to the lagoon. This is a crater from a volcano, and it is at a very very high altitude so the whole time it was FREEZING. When we left, we walked up those mountains, it took like two hours. My favorite place so far, it was so beautiful.