The Great Fall

So today I want to talk to you guys about the Fall.. The Great Fall.
Not the fall of Man... no, we won't be going into that today.. today we are going to talk about the Fall of Woman... and more specifically, me.

As I'm sure many of you know, I had a great fall a few weeks back. Call me Humpty Dumpty if you like. But allow me let me explain.

Being... well... being me, I absolutely love to play outside -- especially kids games! -- which is the reason I have worked as a camp counselor over the last few summers... and also the reason that I tore my ACL a few years back. WELL... a few weeks ago, I had this brilliant idea of playing Capture the Flag with a bunch of the seminary students, study abroad students, and missionary kids who live on campus. It was a fantastic idea if I do say so myself. We rarely have an event or activity that we can do with all of the seminary students that is cheap enough or close enough for a lot of people to come. So I felt like this was a great opportunity.

So here was the plan:
Everyone was invited. Everyone should wear black, and everyone should be ready to run. We meet outside, and everyone should be ready to go.

When the night came, I explained the basic rules with the help of some of the missionary kids. We had to bright bandanas, and we were ready to start! We split the sides pretty much in half of the campus, so it was a pretty large playing field. Remember that our campus is set on a massive hill, which changed the game a bit. Oh yes.... let me also mention that we decided to play at 9 p.m. So we played in the dark... another one of my great ideas.

We finally began, and it was a great start. Since it was dark and there were lots of buildings, we were able to sneak around to the opposite sides without running too much. It was all going well, until.....

I had a hunch that I had found the general area of the flag, so I headed down the hill behind the chapel. But as I sneaked, I heard people chasing after me! I turned around to find about three or four people on my tail! I ran through the grass and decided to leap over a mini garden between the grass and cement back toward my side. However, when I jumped it was so completely dark that I was unable to see a two foot  fence that stood between the cement and garden... so to my surprise, my feet caught mid-air, and I fell very hard (chin first on the cement). The pain was unbelievable. My friend Nancho ran over to see if I was ok, and immediately cupped my chin to stop the blood flow...
A bunch of people crowded around, and eventually they slowly walked me inside to the bathroom. As we walked, someone asked Nancho to remove his hand, so they could see my chin. When he moved his hand, blood streamed all down his arms and on the ground... This is when I really started to cry, because I saw the gasps and horrified reactions of all my friends. They laid me down on the floor in the bathroom, and one of my friends, Jeremías, held my hand to comfort me. It was then that I realized that my hand was in a lot of pain as well. Nancho had ran down to the nurse's house to ask her to come look. So within another few minutes, they brought me back to the front of campus. She looked at it and immediately told me I would need stitches.
Jana, Kyle (staff members), Ms. Carolyn (the nurse), and I left to go to the hospital and get my chin taken care of. Miss Carolyn took us to the nearest clinic, since it was an emergency. We got out of the car, and I saw a tiny little clinic on the side of the road that looked no more than a hotdog shop. We entered a very small waiting room, where about six other people were waiting to be treated. Thankfully, they saw that I was bleeding and let me go first. I walked in the back, but for some reason they wouldn't let Miss Carolyn, Jana, or Kyle come back with me...

So I'm in a small somewhat shabby care clinic in Ecuador with nurses speaking in Spanish, and without any of the study abroad staff to help me communicate. I understood everything the nurse said as she cleaned my chin and brought me to another room to get stitches. But after she gave me the anesthesia in my chin and pulled out the needle to start stitching, Miss Carolyn (our nurse) pushed past the receptionist and burst in the room with ice for my hand. She explained that she needed to be with me, and began to ask questions to the nurse about everything she was doing. Apparently, the nurse was planning to stitch me up while the doctor sat in the room and did paperwork. Thankfully, Miss Carolyn had the sense to tell them we would go to a different hospital in hopes of a better doctor. She was very nice about it and told them that since my hand was hurting, we wanted to get an x-ray, which that clinic didn't provide.

So we headed back out to the car, and I was so thankful that we left, because I didn't exactly trust the nurse with my face. The hospital that we drove to was extremely nice, even for the States, which gave me more confidence. They got me in almost immediately, and the doctor spoke English! He looked at my chin and said it was extremely deep and he would rather have the plastic surgeon come in to stitch it up. WHAT A RELIEF! That could have been ugly...

In the mean time, as we waited for the plastic surgeon, another doctor came in to look at my hand. He said it was fine, but he would get the x-ray to confirm. So off I went for x-rays.... and when we returned,  the plastic surgeon had arrived soon after. Apparently he had performed surgeries for Miss Carolyn's husband after a few accidents, so she knew him fairly well! He was incredibly nice, but unlike the other doctors, he didn't speak English. That was not a problem at all, because I understood him easily. So he placed a cape over my face with a small hole over my chin, so he could focus on that. He cleaned it again and gave me more anesthesia. Then he investigated the hole to see just how deep it went... Apparently he could see the bone in my chin! So he started to tap it with his tool, which didn't hurt but was uncomfortable, so I asked him to stop. Eventually he finished stitching it up and bandaged it for me. About this time, the other doctor came in to tell me the results of my x-ray. I had a fracture in my hand/wrist.. The bone I fractured was a very important bone that takes a long time to heal due its lack of blood flow. :( I was told they would give me a cast to wear for two months, and I will have to do a small amount of therapy after. Thankfully, Kyle remembered that we would be leaving for the Galápagos Islands in roughly two months and asked if they could remove the cast before the trip. The doctor was extremely hesitant, saying that usually he would insist on 3 months in the cast. But when he realized it would only be three or four days early, he agreed, saying I would have to be careful. I was overjoyed!!

As I thought about it more, I realized that it really could have been much worse. We had recently traveled to the jungle, and I would have missed out on a lot of fun had I fractured it before. I also could have done it a week later, which would have ruined my trip to the Galápagos! It could have been my right hand instead of my left.. or it could have been my whole arm!! The plastic surgeon told me that I was very close to fracturing my chin, which would have required much more surgery and caused a lot more pain.

Overall, it was another opportunity in which I saw God's hand at work in my life. He has provided me with yet another challenge to choose joy in a rough situation. But I am thankful to Him that it is nothing worse. And I am thankful that He is able to teach me throughout every circumstance. And now I have a piece of artwork on my arm with signatures to remind me that I am blessed with a lot of people who love me! :)

I recently got my stitches out of my chin, which is hardly noticeable now. The issue now is that I feel a wad of scar tissue, which apparently no one else can notice but is noticeable to me. haha! So not to worry, I will hopefully be coming home to you all in one piece. :)
Thank you all for your prayers. God is definitely taking care of me and the rest of the girls here.

High five! :)   (More recently, my Spanish professor wrote High Five in Spanish underneath, so it says "Dame Cinco!")

So I survived! Woo! High five!!! ;)

Sincerely, The Girl with Yellow Hair

Carnaval: A Week Long Water Fight

In case some of you haven't heard of Carnaval before.. Allow me to explain..
The week that Lent starts is also the week of a continental holiday throughout all of Latinoamérica.. known as Carnaval. This holiday is best known in Brazil for their wild parties, parades, and costumes. If you have seen Rio (the animated movie with the little blue bird), you'll understand on a small scale. While Brazil is the most extreme of the Carnavals, each country celebrates in its own special way. In Ecuador, there are two days designated to use "espuma" (basically foam/silly string) and water in a huge fight with your friends, neighbors, and strangers. This practice used to be aimed at the women of Ecuador as a show of male dominance, but in recent years it has developed to become a "friendly" water fight! Although the use of water is now illegal in public settings (with strangers), many people flock to beaches to continue the fun! While only two days are designated as Carnaval, you will begin to see foam and water balloons up to two weeks in advance! Mostly over-anxious kids are the ones to start early.. but at the seminary, we had to be EXTREMELY careful the week leading up to Carnaval.

In fact.. a few seminary students threatened me with water and foam, warning me to watch my back -- over a week early! I certainly did watch my back. I carried around my laptop as a shield, knowing that no one would attack when I had expensive electronics in hand.. (yes, I knew that as a fact. I was not compromising the safety of my computer) ... so one day, I decided to start the Carnaval fun for myself....
One night when Lady and I were talking, we could hear that there were a lot of girls in the next room being very noisy. I decided that Lady and I should attack. :) So Lady knocked on the door, and I ran in with espuma and sprayed EVERYONE! Then we ran back to our room as fast as we could and locked the door! The girls spent the next half hour to an hour doing everything they could to convince us to open the door.. they failed... mwhahaha.
and so.... I made a point of staying inside and locking my door at every possible moment the rest of the week.

Well the weekend before Carnaval actually arrived... all of the Americans decided to emerge from the safety of our rooms and face the unknown..... Saturday came... as did the Alpha (church) picnic on campus. I came ready for battle. I knew I would be attacked, since I attacked them a few nights before. (Some of us had bought cans of espuma in case we were attacked, and we wore clothes that would dry easily.) When Taylor and I walked up to the picnic, we saw some friends and greeted them as we walked passed. Little did we know, they were ready to attak us! They whipped around and sprayed us with foam until we were blue and pink all over! We did what we could to fight them off, but it was too late and we were not armed with enough espuma...

The rest of the afternoon turned into a water/espuma fight on the field with everyone. It was a complete blast. :)
And that wasn't even the worst of Carnaval... The American girls all thought that we had experienced all that Carnaval had to offer.. but boy were we wrong...

Sunday we were on our own and avoiding more festivities. We all stayed inside and worked on homework. (At least, I can't remember doing anything else... so we'll stick with that.) Monday we attended class as usual, while the seminary students got that day and the next day off, since they had just finished a block. I was a little worried on Monday, because the seminary students were attacking each other every once in awhile. But we all made it through safely.

Then came Tuesday... the seminary students still did not have class, and we attended class as usual. I decided to wear a t-shirt in case anyone decided to spray me to or from class. Usually, we get a ten minute break every day at 10 a.m. Our profesor told us that we would have a break at 10:30 that day, so we could have a meeting with Lucy, the director of the study abroad program. She also told us to leave our cell phones behind, so we would not be distracted. As the break approached, I was ready for a meeting, until my friend pointed out to me that all the facts pointed to us getting attacked. I finally connected the dots and realized the scheme. Our profesor played dumb about any possibility of an attack, but we knew better. So we decided to be ready for war! All the girls removed their jackets, socks, and shoes and brought their full water bottles with the intentions of surprising them with an attack too!

We all sneaked in a group to the corner, and started to cross the stairs that connect our building to the the office building.... when all of a sudden, we were all completely soaked from head to foot!!!! WHAT?! I had no idea what just happened.. When I finally realized that I was wet, I looked up to see seminary students on the roof with buckets and buckets full of water! They popped out from behind the walls with foam and more water to further attack us!

This was when I realized they were on the roof.. The poor little water bottle didn't do much.

We were COMPLETELY soaked!

I have never been so wet in clothes.

The war had begun.

We all ran back to our rooms, leaving small lakes on our floors as we found better clothes to play in. We spent the next two or three hours playing outside with the seminary students, the missionary kids, and whoever else we encountered! We used hoses, buckets, bowls, foam, and anything else we could find and attacked each other all day.
Allow me to share some of the wisdom I gained from this experience.

Carnaval for Dummies:
Rule #1: Do not trust anyone. -- Apparently God doesn't mind if you lie during Carnaval.
Rule #2: Always be aware of your surroundings. -- Surprise attacks are common.
Rule #3: Don't lose your bucket.-- It will be your end.
Rule #4: Watch out for hoses while running... -- Yes, I fell pretty hard on the cement and got a nice big scrape. Did I continue playing after? Why, yes, of course I did. :)
Rule #5: Lock your doors always. -- You will be attacked if you don't.
Rule #6: Get wet and dirty, and enjoy it! It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

That evening, everyone had finished playing... except me. :)
María - the most competitive and sneakiest seminary student involved in Carnaval -- asked me many times if I could play volleyball that night. Although I could, I did not want her to plan a surprise attack against me... So I planned one against them! I spent almost an hour filling up water balloons with one of the seminary students, and put them all in bags so I could carry them up and attack everyone as they played! I decided to ask the other Americans, but none of them were up for playing more..
So I talked to Jana, our "R.A." while we are here, and she was up for the challenge! Wearing all black, we sneaked up to the gym and bombarded them with water balloons! I got my friend Kaths, who had not been attacked by anyone at all yet! But unfortunately, my balloons kept exploding on me... so I got it worse than anyone... haha, I know. Serves me right.

When we mopped up the floor, we ended up playing volleyball! So all in all, it was a fantastic day. The next day I felt much better, since no one had the right to attack me with water any more..

What a sigh of relief! We survived Carnaval! :) And it was a BLAST!




Sincerely, The Girl with Yellow Hair