To Busk or Not to Busk!

 So to all of my American friends, to busk means to perform on the street for money. I didn't know that term 'til I met Courtz. She had suggested doing it a week or so ago and I had totally chickened out. But then we went to a concert on the beach on Saturday night. One of the performers had tried to get us gringas to come up on stage and sing an English song! Me not speaking Spanish didn't understand what she was asking. I thought she wanted us to dance! I was not going to go up and dance. Music moves me, but it moves me ugly ;) So I had stayed put. It turns out that she started to sing "Someone Like You" by Adele! Me and Mechaela had just sung

that song incredibly well, if I do say so myself, before we had left for that concert!!! We were both kicking ourselves for being such losers that we didn't understand and didn't get to sing that song for hundreds of people! It would have been ultimate Karaoke!! lol. So to make ourselves feel less like losers and to get it out of our system, we decided to busk. The first picture is the spot that we chose. It just so happened to be across from a street carnival that had bongos and fire dancers! So we didn't get too much attention. No money. But it was still super fun! And later we moved and the carnival went away. We met up with a brother and his family from Jipijapa and Stefania. So we sang for them. And then the brother sang

a couple of absolutely beautiful songs for us! I'm pretty sure that we all got a bit choked up listening to him singing. Kelly recorded it. So we'll have to let you guys listen to it when we see you again ;) After that we treated ourselves to some Batidos. And the best ones in town are at Luis' stand. It's our regular spot. So we headed over and got Oreo Batidos except for our monkey friend Courtz who loves her bananas. Then we sat on some steps nearby and Courtz played a few more songs. It's a night I won't soon forget. We all had such a good time. And it was such a unique experience. No where in the States would I feel so comfortable to sit on a city street

corner and just relax with a bunch of brothers and sisters playing music and talking. I feel so blessed to be here! It's such a priviledge and I thank Jehovah every day for it! 

Mechaela Enjoying Ecuadorian Service

 This was Sunday service for me and Mechaela. Our first time working together, ever! Super fun!

The first picture was taken after we got lost because I wasn't entirely sure where my return visit was. There aren't any road signs here, so it's understandable ok!!! lol! We wandered down the wrong road for far too long. But the clouds hanging in the mountains was absolutely stunning! We are now in the cloudy season here. It's been raining quite a bit. It seems to be a'lot more than I was expecting. But I love the rain! So after being hopelessly lost and talking to a man on a donkey we waited for Courtz to meet up with us so we could go on one of her studies. We got to contribute to the study a bit. Mechaela read an entire paragraph out of the Bible Teach book and I got to read off a couple of questions. Then the mother of the girl that we studied with was super nice and took this picture for us. All three of us crammed onto the bike to head to my return visit by the fish market, Tatiana. When we got there Tatiana wasn't home. But a lovely older woman named Flora spoke to us for a while. Mechaela used her presentation! :') So proud of her! I found out that on the weekends my study goes to a university in Manta. Which is about two hours away! So I will continue to call on her during the week.

Mechaela Has Joined the Crew!

 So Kel and I made our journey to Guayaquil! And then headed back home.... Not according to plan. But I'll explain more about that later.
 We headed out on Thursday to make our 4 hour trip to Guayaquil. We were terrified!!!!! Not that we would show it ;) Cause we are tough stuff! But we had quite a few problems before we made it out of Machalilla. We couldn't get our phone to work. So we went into town in Puerto Lopez to go to the Claro kiosk to try and get the lady there to fix our phone. It turns out that the problem was with the company and not the phone. We didn't know that. So we actually wasted about two hours before we left. Not that that was really a problem because we had plenty of time to get to Guayaquil. But I was just freaking out over everything... I didn't handle things very well, lol!
 So we finally head out to go to Jipijapa, our first and only stop before the big city. And on our way out we made very good friends with a man on the side of the road. The bus was parked and Kel looked out the window and spotted him. What peeked our interest was his shirt. It said: "Federal law #??? States that Wal-mart employees have a right to form a union". LOL! So Kel leaned out the window and tried to take a picture of his shirt. Which of course made him think that we were interested in him and not just the shirt! Thankfully he did not decide to board the bus, but remained on the sidewalk pointing us out to all of his buddies nearby.
 So we got to Jipijapa in about an hour with no problems. Then we headed to Guayaquil. The drive there is absolutely gorgeous!!!!! Mountains and beautiful different kinds of foliage. There is a short video on Youtube of the drive as well.
 We got to Guayaquil relatively early. Our wonderful sister Gabi came and picked us up from the bus terminal and got us set up in our room at her B&B. We just rested until it was time to go and pick up Mechaela.
 We didn't take any pictures of Mechaela coming through the gate. We failed! lol.
 So the reason that we didn't end up going to Pelileo and Cuenca right then was because our friends in Pelileo ended up having their convention that weekend. We had planned on only staying for three days, and of those three days we would only see them one. So we decided to just go home and wait 'til they had time for us to come.

I've never been so excited to see those golden arches! I don't typically like McDonald's. But after no regular food for a little over a month, you'd be surprised what appeals to you. And their McFlurries are way better here btw. They not only give you the oreo crumbly bits, but on top of that they drizzle the hot fudge sundae syrup! It makes it so much better. I'm going to start requesting that in the States ;)

I snapped this photo while the girls were sleeping. The bus was so hot!!! We typically would have got a nice swanky bus with air con, but opted out of that for the direct bus to Puerto Lopez. It was a'lot cheaper! But it was so hot.

Mechaela is my hero! She brought us junk food! I'm holding a huge piece of Jerky. It is so wonderful! I never knew how much I would miss Jerky. And peanut butter! The two together are pure magic. lol! We totally are living the bachlorette lifestyle ;)