Macas

Hi again,
I haven't written for awhile because last week they sent me to the little town of Macas. It's a little city on the outskirts of the jungle. We took a 5 and a half hour bus to go about (I think) 500km...which (I think) is just over 200 miles. The reason it took so long is because just about the whole road is dirt and it winds around the mountains. As we road, we were literally at times about 10 feet from falling thousands of feet off cliffs- no guard rail or anything! The REALLY fun part is when another bus is coming from the other direction and they pass each other baaaaarely fitting. There was one point when we went in a tunnel through a mountain, and also drove through several little streams. It was so cool! And the SCENERY!!! Wow...what a blessing to see God's creation of the mountains and valleys along the way. A lot of it reminded me of scenes from Lord of the Rings. Other parts I just kept thinking about how much my dad would enjoy the ride because we would pass farm after farm. It was really interesting to see how they would plant things on the slopes of hills. It looked like a patchwork quilt the way it was set up. When I bring me laptop down I'll post pictures so you can see.
The reason I went to Macas is because the Allan's son started an orphanage there sometime last fall. It's very small with only 7 kids. Isaac needed to go to Riobamba to get some new documents (his wallet was stolen with his drivers license, etc.) Plus, there's a new truck here waiting for him to bring back to Macas. Their older daughter Naomi was supposed to go, but the morning she was going to leave she was sick. So, instead their other daughter Zoe who is 19, plus one of the older boys who lives here (14 yrs), and I went in her place.
To make a long story short...Isaac didn't end up going to Riobamba because one of his kids, a 6 year old boy with cerebral palsy was very sick. In fact, the night he was supposed to leave Isaac brought the boy to the hospital instead and we found out that he had pneumonia. He was having a hard time eating and seemed to be in a lot of pain. THey wanted to keep him in the hospital, but there weren't enough beds!! So they sent him home. The trip wasn't in vain though... Isaac wouldn't have been able to bring the boy to the hospital that night if we hadn't been there because there wouldn't have been anyone to watch the other kids. We stayed until Friday morning and hitched a bus back to Riobamba. Naomi will go down to stay next week sometime I think so Isaac can run the errands he was supposed to do last week.
IT was SOOOO cool being in Macas. In the backyard there were all kinds of exotic things growing. Some, for example, included a really sweet type of banana (different from what we have), papaya, wild cilantro, sugar cane! (which we cut down with a machete and ate a few times), a berry called "Mora" which looks like a black raspberry and tastes like a raspberry, a yusera (I don't know how you spell that) tree that people use the roots to make a hot drink with, as well as all kinds of beautiful flowers. I took all kinds of pictures to show my dad!
Our responisbilities if Isaac had left would have been to make sure the workers who clean, cook, and watch kids were doing their jobs the right way as well as the bring the girls to school and pick them up, buy groceries or medicine if needed, etc. So Isaac showed us how to do all of that. The kids were great and I really enjoyed getting to know them. BEcuase of the confidentiality agreement I have with the University I can't post any pictures of the kids. Sorry!!
Interesting story....on the way back from Macas we were riding on the bus. About two hours into the trip a little red truck went driving by us. The bus stopped and a few people with matching shirts got on. (They were white and green and looked like some sort of nature conservation kind of people or something...i don't really know.) But anyway..they got on the bus and even started talking to a few people in the front who they must have known. It seemed normal becuase the bus is often stopping and picking up or dropping people off. As they walked to the back of the bus one of them bent over to look at my friend who was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. They went a few seats further and started shouting at some skinny guy with a pink button up shirt. They said "WHere is it?? Give it back now!!" and He kept insisting he didn't know what they were talking about.. SO they took the bag he had, opened it, and took out a laptop that was in it. THey they started asking about the camera "Where's the camera...c'mon..give us the camera..." He didn't give them a camera so they made him get off the bus with them and who know what happened after that. IT was exciting! I didn't know what was going on so when they started demanding his camera...I took the one that i had in my hand and hid it in my bag! I didn't want them to demand my camera too!!! :oP Zoe told me that they treat theives here really bad...and in some places even burn them alive ?? IT seemed strange to me because people here are always getting robbed. The saying is "get what you can, when you can get it."