10/7/2012

We were ‘used to them’ at our cabin in the mountains.

We always had a back-up trap for them.

And we knew the secret:

They go for the Snickers bars, not the cheese.

Uuuuugghhh. There is a rat in our cabin. It’s a huge, ugly brown one. And it ate my saltines. I will tell you when we get him.

Until then…

We have been pretty busy with school: Math, English, Quichwa, Science, Art, Music, and P.E. In English, we are all finished with The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Now we are producing news reports. Lali and I are Anchormen, Saida is the text prompter, Jadyra is the Technician, Marisol is the Cameraman, and Abigail is the Director. We start filming tomorrow. For Science, we are all writing songs about biomes. I chose the Taiga, and I’m doing it to the music of Stronger by Mandisa. In Math, we are learning about geometric solids. Last week, we made cubes out of cardboard.

On Friday, Mr. Darin and Ashlee Coyle, and some other people with Kaleo Kids came to the school. Lali and Ms. Charmae were in Quito, and Jadyra and Saida were spending the week-end with their mom. We had a great time at Hilton Pizza in Tena. After stopping at Super Tia for some groceries, we went back to the cabin, and we had a sleep-over with Marisol and Ashlee. We played MASH, watched Puss in Boots, braided hair, and they painted nails. It was a lot of fun.

We are going to Quito on the 17^th because mom and dad have Staff Training. We are going to stay at the Coyle’s with Ashlee. I can’t wait!

Blessings,

Madeline Studebaker

9-19-12

Hola-

Today Lali and I did our power point presentation for English.

Tyler gave us some advice after we bombed it: Never tell the class that the subject of your presentation is going to be boring.

Maybe I should have thought of that before I said “After reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond, I thought that Puritans and Quakers were boring. After researching Puritans and Quakers, I decided they were very boring except for the ‘witch’ burnings they did.”

Don’t be surprised if I blog and say I earned a F-. Because it stunk.

Keri’s Science class rocks, and  Art/Music and Math are awesome.(Math is only awesome because my Dad teaches it.)

I have been playing a lot of soccer with the kids at school during recess. Two teams: The 5^th – 7^th girls, and the 5^th – 7^th boys. So far we have had about 7 games. I think we tied twice, the boys won twice, and “The Champions” (girl’s team) won three times. 

I am missing home but I am getting used to living here more and more. Spanish is getting easier for us. But that’s still pretty hard.

Blessings,

Madeline Studebaker

9/9/12

Hola amigos!

I just got through the first week of school! It was mostly pre-testing.

In English class we are reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It was about the Quakers and the Puritans. It wasn’t my kind of book, but it made a good point. Being different isn’t always wrong.   

On Tuesday, in Spanish class, we had to memorize a recipe in Spanish and present it on the white board in front of the class. I had totally forgot about it after mom had told me Sr. Aldo (the Spanish teacher) had told us  not to worry about it. I think he changed his mind. So I threw together my old Banana Cobbler recipe and the other girls – Lali and Jadyra – helped me translate some English words to Spanish. I hope Sr. Aldo didn’t think about the fact that “mix all” (and yes, Lali and Jady translated that) had included helado (ice cream) instead of huevos (eggs).

In Math we just finished the tests. I am ready to dive headfirst into Singapore math. (Joke) It teaches at a different level and pace than Saxon. But if that’s what I have to do, I’ll do it.

I am enjoying my Quichwa classes, although learning English and Spanish and Quichwa all at the same time is a little bit difficult.

A few days ago, we got to see and touch a boa constrictor! It was a baby one, about 2 ft. long. One of the Davalos boys found it in the bananas. It was brown and black, with the dark pattern getting bolder near the end of the tail.

We are always making new friends. About 2 weeks ago, when the internet was out, we meet the Moore’s at the internet cafe. They just moved to Misahualli a few weeks ago. We helped them paint jungle boots a few days ago. It was fun. 

The interns, Mr. Tyler and Ms. Keri, are also really nice. Yesterday, Ms. Keri took us – the 6^th and 7^th grade girl’s Science class – to Misahualli for ice cream. Ms. Keri said it was like 2 miles there, 2 miles back. Oh, and we were walking. It was pretty fun.

I will be posting blogs more often now that we have some internet at the cabin.

Blessings,

Madeline Studebaker

9-1-12

Hola!

We are in the new cabin and are doing fine. There is a small loft here… and its all mine! We are still unpacking.

School starts on the 3^rd of September – just two days away! I am excited. I was not very enthused about uniforms – much less a uniform with a skirt. They did not look very  comfortable. Mom asked if I could wear my khakis to school because the bugs would eat me alive in a skirt. They said yes. 

Mom and Dad teach several classes, so they are busy with lesson plans, finding their rooms and the like.

Abigail and I have been watching Elijah and helping at the school and around the house.

Yesterday we went to Tena. Keri and Tyler came with us.  They hadn’t been to Tena yet. We called a taxi, and took it to Misahulli. We were going to take the 2:15 pm bus from there, but Tyler’s wallet fell out on the road. By the time we recovered it, we had missed the bus. So we took the taxi the rest of the way to Tena. First, we went to the plastic store. The one we went to is a small building with a garage door on a dirt road. They had plastic bins, trash cans, tubs, fly swatters, etc. Next, we went to a bank. Then we went to a music store. It was partly underground, and there was literally only 6 inches between the top of my head and the ceiling! After that, we stopped by a pizza place on the side of the road. Then on to Super Tia, the grocery store. Its roughly ¼ the size of a Bi-Lo or the Ingles store. I got paper, pencils, erasers, compasses, rulers, and a notebook. They had a big selection of notebooks.  I am pretty much set for the school year!

So All May Know,

Madeline Studebaker

Yesterday interns Tyler and Keri arrived! They are very nice. I am looking forward to being in their classes.

Today, we had the pleasure of meeting a spider-monkey family! There were three, and they were hanging out in the trees around our cabin. They were eating what the native people call paki. There was a baby monkey, too. We watched them for a long time. Then Anthony got a banana and put  it at the bottom on the tree the monkeys were in. The male slowly climbed down, picked it up with his tail and climbed part of the way up. Then he shoved the whole banana in his mouth and threw us the peel. Apparently, if the female or baby wanted some, they would have to get it themselves. So we got some more bananas. This time, the female climbed down, looked at us, and grabbed the banana. She thanked us by throwing the peel at us and sticking out her tongue. They were sadly scared off by the Davalos’ little dog, Sugar.

We also played Yahtzee, Apples to Apples, and read an I Spy book with Saida and Jadyra.

By next Monday, we should be in our new cabin! I will probably be sleeping in the loft, and even though hot air rises, it gets kind of chilly at night.

It can be a little annoying when the power goes out for hours, and when the internet goes out for days. But we are alive.

I will try to post whenever we have connections to the internet.

Blessings,

Madeline Studebaker

8-15-12

Why? Why is it raining again?!!

8-15-12

Hola!

It rained the past few days. And it was the kind of rain that’s so loud you yell to hear each other when you’re standing 5 ft. apart. It stopped yesterday. That’s good, because now we can all think and breathe without the constant pounding of rain driving us crazy.

Today Dad was able to help some of the guys who work here fix this cabins water heater. They don’t speak any English. And we haven’t had hot water for the past 4 weeks. But tonight we are all going to have hot showers. 🙂

I am getting excited about school. Most of my friends already started in the states. Jungle School starts on the 4^th of August. The government is changing a lot of laws about school, and its confusing not knowing whats going on. But, hey, who doesn’t mind a few days of extra vacation?

Its also extra time for trying to make friends. The kids here are really nice, but the girls can be shy. They are teaching me to play 4 square, and I am slowly, slowly getting better. I still miss my friends back home, though.

I’m getting bored of the food too, its like rice, beans, and soup every day. But mom got some new recipes and they should help.

There are like two seasons here: Rainy season, and Extra Rainy season. This is Rainy season, and already its raining every other day.

I’m going to start blogging more now that we have internet again.

So All May Know Him,

Madeline Studebaker

We landed in Ecuador at 12:30 am on July 11^th, my 12^th birthday. We stayed in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, for a few days before heading into the jungle. It was nice and cool.  We rode the 5 ½  hours with Mr. Roberto Davalos, Jr. to the jungle school. The roads here aren’t all asphalt with yellow lines – they’re mostly dirt or gravel. And  there’s only seat belt laws for the front seat, so a lot of the time I’m bouncing around in the trunk. Or we take a cabinetta or a bus. And that can be tricky since we don’t speak Spanish.

We are staying in the intern cabin here on the campus until our house is done. And the bugs here are Horrible! We are constantly swatting at misquitos and no-see-ums. We are being eaten alive for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We brought mostly shorts and capris, so I’m wearing socks up to my knees and pants every chance I get. But we are still covered in bug bites.

A few days after we got here, a college team came for about a week. We went with them and helped with several VBS programs for the local children.  We went to 4 villages. The people here are really poor. The kids were dressed in rags, they take care of their younger siblings, but worse – their parents don’t care where they are. Abigail played hopscotch with a few girls, Dad threw a football with some boys, mom was talking with some of the women from the tribe. One little girl who was about 7 couldn’t play because of the infant she was carrying in a sling. The girl let me hold her baby sister while she played with her friends. And I knew I wanted to see all of them in heaven someday.

To get to that village we had to ride in a huge canoe for 30 minutes. I didn’t feel especialy safe when the boat stopped in the middle of the Napo river and huge snakes swam around us.

The market in Tena is where we get most of our stuff. They sell fruits, vegtables, clothes, shoes, fish, and this is gross – grubs. They fry them up and eat them.

We’ve also been to some waterfalls. It was a 1 hour hike through the jungle with the team. It was pretty amazing.

The Misahualli square is awesome,too. There are adorable white faced capuchian monkeys running around everywhere. We also took a 2 day trip to Banos. It was great! Nice and cool, the mountains were amazing. The only bad part was the bus driver almost broke our necks and mom threw up.

The new-ness of this jungle is wearing off. Getting used to living here is going to be difficult, and in September jungle school starts. I’ve been home schooled until now, and I’ll be in 7^th grade this year in a classroom with girls who are 10 to 15 years old. I’m missing my friends, too. But God’s going to make sure everything turns out fine.

Blessings,

Madeline Studebaker