God's Work (and being thousands of feet above Sea Level) Takes Your Breath Away

   

  Wow!  An actual full family photo (credit Amy Altland) and we only needed to climb to 13000 feet above sea level for it to happen.  Maybe everyone was too short on oxygen to argue.  We spent an absolutely lovely day with a wonderful family we are getting to know already here in Quito.  We took a cable car (Teleferico) up Mt Pichincha one of the four volcanoes that border the city.  For this lady who has an inexplicable fear of heights it was quite a feat to go from around 9300 ft to 13000 ft in about 5 minutes.  I can't really describe the feeling except that I felt like my lung capacity had been cut in half and my need for air doubled.  I was secretly glad that our youngest had a cold which made her movement even slower.  However, by the time we reached the point where most of us stopped (5 others went a bit higher) the amazing views of Quito, and more awesomely the natural world around Quito took my breath away...well not that there was much more breath to be taken.  It was surprisingly cold but to be outside way above the noise, smells and insanity of the city far below, well it was just what our spirits needed.

Buenos dias, tarde, noche,...hola?

Well, it was almost a year of preparation, of emotional ups and downs, of unknowns...and yet I sit here still pinching myself that we are actually in Quito, Ecuador.  We have now hit every continent except the big chunk of ice further south which we have no intention of hitting.  I am still not sure about my first impressions as landing at a new post with the government requires a lot of briefings and a whole lot of waiting while your Life is set up for you in some ways.  However, there is also a whole lot of "just figure it out" moments.

We feel more than blessed with our "temporary" home for the next four months until our official house is ready for us.  I don't have much cleaning, only some laundry to do and as of right now almost every meal has been prepared in a restaurant.  I am feeling that this will grow old quickly as Quito is not quite the eating capital that Singapore was.

The kids are all experiencing things in their own way with moments of excitement and moments of tears as are expected with these types of transitions.  I keep reminding them that technology alone makes their situation far easier than was mine in the 80's moving to India.  But, non-the-less culture shock is still what it is.

We are heading to the school on Monday and I hope this will help give us all a bit of an anchor.  We have been greeted by some wonderful people who have reached out and been truly welcoming, something that was lacking from our last transition.

Language is a funny thing.  I am forever amazed by a group of people who can communicate the same thoughts, feelings, jokes, concepts, etc as I do and yet use words and sounds that mean absolutely nothing to me.  I do have hope that we will all progress in our Spanish to some useful level soon, but for now we try to keep a sense of humor as we say things like "Voy a llegar  la comida" instead of "llevar" saying that I will "arrive the food" instead of "take the food to go".  But most people seem to laugh and smile right along with us.  I must say that as one who loves to sit and discuss the "deeper" things of Life...I will most certainly not be sounding too profound in Spanish for a while.

Needing to round up people and get pumped for dinner.  (Yes, every event requires some sort of a pep rally)  Hasta luego!  T