Like this:

VID00034

►

We’ve settled into the “dog days of summer” here.  What I mean by that is the initial excitement about being here has started to abate  and we’re now knee deep everyday in finding a way to accomplish our tasks here.  Things don’t work here the way they work back home and there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from this reality.  Since we often don’t have the resources we’re accustomed to, we have to make due with what’s available.

Take the internet access here, for example.  Yes we have it, but it isn’t strong enough signal to support the MagicJacks or Skype system that we intended to keep us connected at our U.S. efficiency.  Not only that, but I’ve discovered in the last few days just how difficult it is to upload the videos we’ve taken to include with these blogs.  It sometimes takes days to upload one 30 second video and that has almost brought the companion blogging ideas to a grinding halt.  So, we have to make due with what we have.  After a week of borrowing a phone from Ljubo and Loly (two of our guardian angels here) and much time and assistance from them, we  finally got Staci’s business cel. “unlocked” and an Ecuadorean cel. chip installed so that we could have a phone available to call clients and friends back home.  I’m trying to be patient with the snail pace of videos uploading and will probably focus more on photos that have shorter load times to keep the blog posts cranking out at a more regular pace.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself about this issue until I recalled a story shared by a local named Mike Sager.  Mike’s an American business person who came down here 4 years ago and he recently described what internet in these parts used to be like.  He explained that not so long ago, he couldn’t type more than a few sentences in an e-mail before he would lose his internet connection.  The way he managed this shortcoming was to type the body of his e-mail text into a Word document, save it and then, when the internet god chose to smile on him, he’d quickly copy and paste into an e-mail and hit the send button before the process all unraveled again.  That’s the kind of “can do” or make due”, resourcefulness that is so amazing here.

Another example of Ecuadorean ingenuity was displayed by a local laborer at our compound last week.  There is a trealace made of local trees and a thatched roof that separates our patio area from the house next door and it had started to lean markedly to one side.  A local gentleman was called in to repair it.  It was fascinating watching this guy work.  First he removed the sod around the broken concrete footing.  Then he dug out a larger hole about a foot and a half deep around it.  Next he removed the old footing and prepared a mold for repouring a new concrete footing.  Once he had mixed the new concrete and poured the new footing, he relaxed in a hammock nearby.  He arose after a two hour siesta, removed the mold, added several coat of clean white paint, replaced the dirt and sod and watered it to make sure it blended in with the rest of the grassy area.  He did all this work with little more than an old rusty trowel, a claw hammer and a machete.

Often we 1st world inhabitants either subtly or blatantly look down our noses at people who live or work in more primative circumstances.  We wonder how or why they choose live like that as they might appear to many to be totally unmotivated to strive for a “better way of life”.  Yet my friend Billy pointed out to me, as we watched a construction crew work with their crude hand tools on a nearby house, if we ever do experience a terrorist attack that cripples the technology that we “civilized” people utilize and depend on, it’s Manuel with his hammer and machete who will survive and thrive.  The rest of us upwardly mobile yuppies will be crying for the “can do or make due” common folks to save us.  That’s the lesson.

So here is our family, struggling with the internet, struggling to get the kids to study, struggling to contact clients and run a business from worlds away.  At the end of the day, we can walk on the beach, admire an amazing sunset, hug each other and thank our lucky stars for the chance to see, learn from and appreciate another people and their way of life.  That’s the payoff.

As Jose, our favorite cab driver, stopped his cab on the cliff overlooking our nearly pristine 10 mile beach below and shot the video you see above, we were reminded of something profound. That no matter how often we struggle to adjust here and shake our fists at the unreliability of Ecuador’s present technology, there are people all around us that have never had a computer, or a phone or air conditioning, or screens on their windows, or even teeth, to chew a good steak with (if they could ever afford one).  Yet they’re living a life with grace and pride and peace.  Thank you to all those who quietly show us by example that there is value in simplicity, in having less, in making do with whatever is available and be grateful for that.  It’s a grand lesson that won’t be lost on us.

Advertisement