Back in Quito

For all of you who were convinced that we must've gotten lost in the jungle because you haven't heard from us, we're fine and back in civilization. We spent a couple weeks in La Bramadora and Reten, both in Ecuador. The people of both places were absolutely amazing. It was so great to work and build relationships with them.
In La Bramadora, we stayed with Elmer, the pastor of a small church, and his wife Carmen. We helped paint their church and helped with their Sunday service. In Reten, we did some construction at a church/school mixing concrete, digging holes, and started the erecting of a wall to go around their buildings. Both places are very poor. Their houses are just boards for the floor and walls and a tin roof. Where the walls meet the ceiling is open for the hot air to escape and the bugs and spiders to get in. In La Bramadora we slept in a big cinderblock building/room and were very thankful for our mosquito net. They only have one temperature for the water including the showers: cold.
In Reten, we were with a short term team and slept in different buildings which was a little hard. The bugs and spiders were much bigger there. For showers, we drove to a river with a beautiful waterful and did the best we could.
As far as motion sickness goes, everything was fine until I took the patch off for a day and realized that a side effect is that once you take it off, you could feel like your motion sick even when you're not travelling. This happened twice and took me out of commission for a few days. We're experimenting with it now and hope to get it figured out so that I don't have to constantly have one on and still avoid being sick.
While I was sick in Reten, the people there were so incredibly generous and concerned. The pastor and elders came and annointed me with oil and prayed for me. The neighbors offered me indigenous remedies such as drinking two slightly boiled eggs and drinking lots of fresh grapefruit juice. I enjoyed the grapefruit juice a little more than the eggs!
In Quito, where we are now until Tuesday night, we are staying at a seminary surrounded by beautiful mountains. We are enjoying the hot showers and the lack of need for a mosquito net. We went to the equator yesterday and got a tour that was very interesting and fun.
Tomorrow night, Tuesday, we will be leaving for Peru via a 24 to 28 hour bus ride. We will be there for about 10 days.
Overall, everything is going well. There are a lot of little challenges so far such as my computer not working, water not working, large bugs, sickness but no big problems and we are thankful for that. Thanks for your comments and hopefully we'll be able to post again soon. I'll try to get some pics up soon, too.

Eric