Use the Ax!

July 14th

Ambato, Ecuador

The youth trickled into the camp from all over today. They came from the jungle and from communities nearby. From Ambato and from Coca and everywhere in between. While they came, I got the pleasure of assisting Pastor Angels’ wife, Lollie, in Ambato as she ran her errands for the week. In fact, four of us got to assist her (Roberto, Kelli, Jacob (staying for three weeks), and I) today. We drove an hour into the city before getting to the mall to pick up several things for the camp’s snack bar before the week really began. Ambato’s Mall de Los Andes continues to amaze me every time I walk into it. It’s such a modern mall with prices comparable to the United States that it provides such a contrast to the culture and economics surrounding it.

Anyways, we had an enjoyable experience shopping at MegaMaxi before eating in the food court. It had been a good month since I’d had a hamburger, so when I saw I had the opportunity, I bought the biggest one I could find. Our next stop was the Food Market in downtown Ambato. It’s an open air market that has every vegetable and fruit imaginable as well as a good assortment of meats. What caught my eye was the meats for sure. Hanging there on the hooks was everything from a sheep’s head (with the hair still on it) to the intestines of a cow (or at least what looked like that). It about turned me into a vegetarian.

Dead chickens and slabs of pig hanging there just made look at my food in a different perspective. The most interesting thing I saw though was a woman taking an ax to a piece of pork. Lollie had bought a large slab of meat from this woman and for whatever reason, she was laying the smackdown on that piece of meat with a lumberjack’s ax. It was a sight to see…until I got hit in the leg with a small piece of flying red flesh. I’ll just leave it as one of those cultural customs that I don’t understand.

We returned in the late afternoon and I decided to go hike up the mountain with the spare time I did have left before dinner. With a path now halfway formed on the mountain from last week’s hiking expedition, I made it to the top of the mountain in a record 45 minutes. After I got to the top, I was able to see for miles, something pretty rare since the valley is usually full of clouds.

Camp got off to a good start tonight and our video that we put together last night was well received. I think this week will be another special week here at camp.