First Week in Cuenca and a Good Experience

All week we have been working on getting things arranged, here in Cuenca. Once here we moved into an apartment that was empty. All we did is walk in with our luggage, 8 pieces…. Sounds like a lot but was mainly clothing and what we considered essentials for us or what we decided was stuff we didn’t want to have to buy here, to replace what we had there. When we hit the ground we came directly to the apartment, dropped off the bags and set off for a mattress ….. Here you have two choices …. hard mattress and harder! (You can bounce dimes of them… and I’m not kidding) After the mattress, of course bedding, a few towels, then the essentials, coffee, bananas (yes Karla, bananas) and sweet rolls… they were good. Just didn’t buy enough of them, but we had just enough to get us to the next morning. Which we did get to, but we lacked a blanket, I mean enough blankets… so Carol was freezing all night. (Remember we should have had the boxes of stuff from home with the down comforters, but nope, not yet)

Day 2 in Cuenca. We set off for appliances after meeting up with a couple working in English to find the place in town that “takes care of the friends and gives good prices”. We buy out the store…. Just kidding of course. When can we get we ask? “When do you want it”? Toooooday? “What time”? Uuuuuh 3? “Ok”! And, we got to ride to the house with them while they delivered everything…. Only here in Latin America!

Day 3 in Cuenca We start Bethel cleaning the apartment….. (We were told it’s a “new apartment”, which evidently means it’s less then 20 years old) Scrub, Scrub Scrub…. We are, we believe, doing the construction cleaning, but unfortunately the construction was finished some years ago, so we couldn’t get all the paint and whatever some of the other stuff was, removed…… fortunately here, they put drains in the bathrooms …. So we hosed down everything with something that had plenty of bleach in it to kill off whatever had been hanging around for some time. All those germs went running when they saw Carol coming, armed with her battery of cleaning supplies. Once done, we figured, we too, should clean ourselves, but we spared the bleach on ourselves. Good news was we had hot water… sometimes too hot and sometimes not hot enough …. Yes we are trying to figure that out still, how to regulate the temperature of the hot water…. But at least we have something warm (I can hear Brent and Kassie laughing as they had NO hot water when they reached Nicaragua…. Quit complaining DAD!.... I’m not, I’m not…) Here is a good one…. I come out of the bedroom after getting dressed and Carol is in the kitchen putting her makeup on. Using? ……… The MICROWAVE DOOR for her mirror (here the bathrooms don’t have mirrors, you bring your own?.... really!) I about died laughing…ingenious! So if you see a new model of microwave that has as an option, a mirror, you know where it originated! Later that day, we picked up a mirror for her to put on makeup, that afternoon. (And I thought the other was working just fine) Finally we set off in search of furniture, we find out cash is King here, you get good discounts if you pay cash… just like the old days in the States (I think it has to do with the paying of taxes…. But what do I know) Late start …. so not much accomplished, in the purchasing department, but in the searching department, good day! We have to return to the apartment by 4 PM to meet the “technician” who has to come out and hook up the washer and dryer … that’s a hard one … but the “warranty is affected if you don’t”, and the tech doesn’t get his $20.00 (that’s the real reason)

Day 4, Not an early start to go looking for furniture, finally unpacking and washing clothes from 2 weeks…. Was that mold I saw on my undershirt? What is that smell? My dirty socks! Finally, we are off like a herd of turtles. Go to a furniture store we saw driving around yesterday…. We go up to the front door, which is always locked here (you have to ring the bell, then they let you in) and there are a couple guys that are loading furniture into a truck near the front door, they tell us that the store is closed for remodeling… (Bummer we just spent 2 bucks to get a taxi to drop us off a this place) But evidently the disappointment can be seen on our faces, so one of the guys says something to someone inside the store, about clients being here and next thing you know we are inside (love when that happens) a empty showroom with a few pieces of furniture on the first floor. We meet a woman, who asks a few questions about how long we are here for and why… blah blah blah….. We mention we are JW’s, and why we are here in Cuenca. Doesn’t phase her, she starts to show us around and takes us up to the 2nd then 3^rd floor. Nothing here appeals to us, and we let her know we are just investigating our options. Then out of the blue, she starts talking to us about the fact that she is associated with some religion and “feels that there are so many problems in the world that only God could get us out of this mess” So my trusty side kick (miss pioneer) starts talking about the fact that the bible promises that conditions will change in the near future, that God will set up a government to change permanently problems in the world… I mention the Lords prayer and that we pray for that government to come… Carol starts in with the whole bible study program thing… I was about to get there …. Really! And the lady says she would be interested in the program, and that she would like for us to come and show her how we do it…. that Saturday we could come and show her the study program… then, as we are going down the stairs, she tells us that she reads the bible but doesn’t understand anything she reads…. We told her it can be hard, but we too had someone help us and now we are helping others to learn…. She sits us down at her desk, shows us on the map where she lives, and gives us her information… then she tells us she believes that God knows when we need help, and He can bring people together, and THAT, is what she thinks happened today. We were in agreement, as the store was supposed to be closed for remodeling…. And Carol said THAT’S, why we are in ECUADOR! …. Oh yes, we found the majority of the furniture we need, later in the day. Hurray!