Ecuador 2: Emelina

I eventually went to visit Emelina. She is a 70-something woman I befriended before. She lives in a dilapidated house with the roof literally caving in. She had an infection in her foot and couldn’t wear a shoe, so she had her foot wrapped in a plastic bag. She also had no money to buy gas for the stove, so her granddaughter (who has epilepsy and no medication) was cooking over a fire in front of the house. The poverty is so real there, and sometimes it hits me real hard. Especially with Emelina. For two dollars, she could have gotten a cream and pills to cure her infection. But when you get 13 dollars a month from the government to help two people survive….choices are limited, to say the least. Like many people in Yamana, Emelina has maybe 3 sets of clothes…one nice set for church, and two others for the rest of the days. I do what I can to help people while I’m there and also from the states, but the poverty is still overwhelming. And to think that Ecuador is better off than Peru, Bolivia…

There are a few kids in Ecuador I wanted to take in my luggage…unfortunately I probably lost ALL my photos from my digital camera in a sudden memory card errors, so unless I have a miracle, I cannot show you what they look like. Just take my word for it that Pancho is the best salsa dancer, Cristian likes it when I pick him up like a sack of potatoes and he laughs more than he talks, and Maria Jose likes to sit on my lap, which is awesome since she used to be terrified of me when I was there before. One of my favorite memories from Ecuador was watching Maria Jose do her homework from pre-school, which was to draw straight lines on graph paper, a surprisingly difficult task when you are 4, I guess. I was in Yamana during the 16th anniversary of the town and in one parade MJ was also dressed up as the Virgin Mary, which was maybe the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. How much I’m dying for a photo of that right now. The kids loved Play-Doh and especially Connect Four, gifts from the US. We had some mad tournaments that might even put Ms. Cummins to shame :) Just kidding Nicole. SB