5 months down

A few to go. Just how many remains to be seen...

And without further ado, here´s my last blog post from Quito for the next three-and-a-half weeks.

At the end of last cycle, I got horribly sick. I had the flu and got so congested. I even woke up and had trouble breathing one night. Well, I would hate to be inconsistent! This cycle nearing the end and yet again, I find myself quite ill. This time, it´s not my respiratory system that´s failing me, but rather my digestive system. A few days ago, eating anything at all nearly killed me. My stomach would cramp every few minutes and I´d have such nausea. And I got a fever. And a headache. I was on an all-rice diet (which is the typical Ecuadorian thing anyway, but I didn´t even vary it with slabs of meat..)

Anyway. Things could be better.

But really, they couldn´t. I´m going home in TWO DAYS! 2 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes. But, who´s counting?

While I´m gone, I´m going to miss the several great friends I´ve made here. I won´t miss teaching necessarily, but I´ll look forward to returning to it in January. I´ll miss seeing the volcanoes outside my window. And. That´s about it.

Maybe a Monday morning after I´ve been sick all weekend is the worst time to blog. But hey, this is my life. I could portray all the lovely things and pretend life is swell here, or I could be real. I like realism. Redemptive realism of course. I thought I coined that, but apparently Flannery O´Connor said it well before me.

So that was the realism. The redemption is that I value my family, my ´hometown,´ my region, my country, and my God´s infinite love and grace so much more highly now. Bring on the rice and the illnesses and the creepers and the loneliness and the ugliness of the city (for a few more months...). I can handle it.

This is such a good time. In the real sense of the word good. Not like Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City´s "...we don´t even have to try, it´s always a good time."  I mean, the outcome is good. It´s not quite as fun as a barrel of monkeys.

But then again, that´s just life, boys and girls: I don´t even have to try, it´s always a good time! (A rather rough paraphrase of Romans 8:28.)