Los Jordan Polings Vamos al Ecuador

The river smiled as she called to us this morning. Come friends ,  she said, Come and play with me. I offer you my sweet waters, I offer you my gentle pull, I offer you my ever-flowing heart. . The sun shines bright, The day is warm, You are welcome here. Dip in your toes, Play on my banks, Climb my boulders. Jump into me. Ride my current, Swim hard, Swim soft, Watch your toes. When you tire, Rest on my sandy shores Hunt for fish, Skip my stones, Feast on my bounty, And laugh. You are welcome here.

I have been reflecting on the array of gadgets and gizmos that  Americans use, myself included, to enhance our lives: rice cookers, hiking boots, and backpacks, to name a few. Many specialized objects were designed by brilliant inventors and/or marketed by ambitious entrepreneurs to alleviate a challenge, make life easier, and presumably allow increased leisure. I wrote recently about the introduction of one such item here in rural Ecuador -- the washing machine --  which revolutionized women's lives.  But consider an alternate perspective: can what we consider modern conveniences actually serve as obstacles? Might their existence appear useful but their absence create such a gap that we are unable to experience life without them? Might our dependence be maladaptive? Here are two case studies to ponder.  Case #1: The bathing suit  Annette Kellerman, activist for the modern-day swimsuit (photo source: Wikipedia) We have come a long way. The female bathing suit   was introduced to t

This is a typical homeschool morning in La Josefina. We slept in until 8am. Yup, everyone. (It was grey and drizzly). We had a leisurely breakfast of toast, yogurt, strawberries, and granola, though our oven is still not repaired, and we are all hankering for freshly baked muffins.  We start our school day with Spanish reading. Dillon finished El Príncipe Caspian (CS Lewis). Jonah is reading De Como Tia Lola Vino de Visita a Quedarse (Julia Alvarez). Brynna read two Hombre Mosca  (Fly Guy) books.  We have about two more weeks of school.  I have written before about how humbling homeschooling is -- harder than doctoring, for sure. I am more than happy to turn my kiddos' education back over to CCLA next fall, but but I have little doubt that I will miss this sweetness.

(Warning, this a political junkie type of post. . . .) President Guillermo Lasso (photo credit: El Pais) Ecuador made the international news this week, when unpopular President Guillermo Lasso announced that he was dissolving the National Assembly, thereby ending the impeachment trial against him that had begun the day before, while also dismissing every member of Congress from their elected posts. Effective immediately. Lasso, a conservative banker elected in 2021, was accused by the liberal Assembly of being part of an embezzlement scheme involving a state-run oil transport company. Lasso denies the accusations, insisting that all current oil transport contracts were signed under the previous president's administration. In a country where presidents are regularly ousted -- Ecuador had seven presidents between 1995 and 2007 -- and street protests are common -- there was a three-week long nationwide strike last June that almost prevented our arrival-- there has been relative quiet

Sometimes the perfect person comes into one's life at the perfect time.  Julie is definitely one of those people. She became our nanny -- and part of our family -- in August of 2019, six months before COVID-19 went viral and shut the world down.  From the get go, Julie brought unconditional love, adoration, and devoted attention to each of my kids. She would read and read until she was blue in the face. She would sit with them for hours sifting through disorganized tubs of Legos to find just the right piece.  She made daily lunch sculptures with fruits and veggies. She always had an idea (and the equipment) for a creative art project.  Any working parent who has had to find childcare knows that it is literally impossible to do your job when your kids are not well-cared for. With Julie, I never once had to worry if my kids were okay while I was at work; I knew they were being loved.  When COVID turned the world upside down, Julie was unbelievably brave to stick with us; it would hav

                                                 Last Sunday was Mother's Day, of course, a day that we observed by wandering through Historic Downtown Quito and the beautiful Quito Botanical Gardens with our former nanny, Julie, who is visiting us this week (hooray!). We are now back in La Josefina, showing Julie our sweet home.  Today, we truncated our homeschool day so that we could sneak in a trip to the  finca  and a dip in the river before the afternoon rains. Jonah is quietly playing with Legos, Brynna is flitting back and forth from the neighbor's house playing imaginatively with a few local boys, and Dillon is on the front porch, doing math homework and birdwatching. Our soundtrack is the unceasing drumming of the elementary and middle school students practicing for an upcoming parade. Amazingly, I  have found a few minutes to reflect on motherhood, albeit interrupted by the demonstration of a very cool Lego soccer field, an appeal to  try to fix The Incredible Hulk

Last week, US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy published an important opinion piece in the NY Times about an epidemic of loneliness in the United States. In his essay, Murthy asserts that half of Americans are lonely, and he proposes a national framework to "rebuild social connection and community" in America. I have been thinking about his words ever since -- the raw disclosure of his own struggle with loneliness, the profound impact impact of loneliness on health and disease, its magnification of the polarization that already plagues our nation.  Murthy's words left me reflecting about what it means to be in community, what it means to feel loved. And how challenging it can feel to make meaningful social connections.  These reflections feel exceptionally poignant as we are currently living so far from our beloved neighborhood, church, school, work, families and friends.  I recall a soon-to-be-friend who once shared in a group, "I just really want friends. Why is

Hands down, the single most life-changing amenity to have arrived in La Josefina in the last two decades is the electric washing machine. Yes, the road has been paved, and private transport via trucks and motorcycles is now common, but even still. Prior to the influx of  washing machines, women easily spent 10-20 hours per week hand-washing their family's clothes. And, yes, laundry was (and still is) entirely a woman's task in Ecuador.  Most of the washing occurred in the nearby river; it turns out the river is a much easier and more pleasurable location to wash clothes than a lonely low pressure spigot behind the house. Children played nearby on the river banks, splashing in shallow pools all the while inventing games, and the completion of the load of laundry often ended with an indulgent river bath for the women (including shampoo) before heading back home. While clothes-washing was hard work, it was almost always realized in community.  It was in the river where I really ca

        I mentioned recently that it is  achotillo  season here in Ecuador, and what a season it is! The trees are literally dripping with these funny looking fruits.  Achotillos , commonly known as rambutans, are tropical fruits native to Southeast Asia. The name rambutan is a derivation of the Malay word "rambut", which means hair. The fruit's most notable feature is a funny spikey outer casing that turns red when ripe; the yellow appendages look like crazy hair.  Achotillo  is a uniquely Ecuadorian name for the fruit because the hairy outside is identical to another seed pod,  achiote , the food colorant I discussed in my last post.   To eat  achotillos , you either bite or tear open the thick hairy casing to find a smooth grape-sized fruit in the middle, which is rubbery and sweet. You then suck and chew off the inner pit and spit the seed out. As Paul says, this is a recurring theme in tropical fruit: sucking and chewing pulpy flesh off a large inner seed. Today we w