A Foreign Life

The subject for this week’s photo challenge over at www.kimberlygauthier.com is “toys.” Since there are no small children in our home, our toys are of a different variety. In the past couple of months that we have been in the States our daughter Anna has gotten very involved in making things with “Sculpey,” a polymer clay. She loves necklaces (we must have bought a dozen or so since we arrived) and has begun to make her own pendants.  She’s made quite a few- an ocarina, a Wii game controller, and a flask to name a few. The first one she made contains a royal symbol from a Japanese anime that she watches. It is the subject for the photo I am submitting. The picture was taken with my Sony Alpha 55 using the “portrait” mode of the “Scene selection” on automatic.

This week’s photo challenge is “shoes.” This was a difficult challenge for me.  I found it really difficult to think of a creative way to show off the shoes that I have here at the house.  I did spend most of Wednesday trying to get some pictures. I chose my daughter’s cowboy boots and went outside, but I didn’t really like how they turned out.  So…. I decided I would dig into the archives and pull out a picture I took at the camp we go to that’s on the beach in Ecuador. This was taken with a point and shoot camera so I don’t have any “specs” to share. I’m also having trouble adding the button to my post here. It shows  up in “edit” mode and I managed to do it last week, but it’s not working for me today.

I walked in the door from having taken my children to school. I could hear the TV on, but the telephone rang as I stepped inside. It was my friend, Judy. “Have you seen what’s happened on TV?” she asked me. I told her no, I had just walked in the door. She told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. How awful, I thought. She seemed very agitated and I wondered why she had called me about an accident that had happened in New York City. I told her I would go watch the TV and we hung up. I went to the living room and sat down to watch. I wondered how it was possible for a plane to get so lost that it would crash into a building in the downtown part of New York City.  Then I listened as Katie Couric announced that a second plane had crashed into another World Trade Center tower. At that moment I knew. This was no accident but a deliberate attack. My first thought was “This is war.” Just like the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into World War II this attack would bring us into another war. I just didn’t know with whom. All I could think was “We are at war and our lives will never be the same.” I called my husband and we sat glued to the TV unable to move or do anything else. We had our regularly scheduled Station Meeting that morning at the home of the Sosa’s. After a while we forced ourselves to turn off the TV and go over to the Sosa’s house. They were glued to the TV as well and we joined them disbelieving what we were seeing. As the other missionary families arrived we just sat there wondering what was really happening. When the first tower fell all I could think of was all those people inside that tall building. And now they were all dead. My heart was physically hurting. We sat there in silence all waiting for the second building to fall. After an hour or so we remembered what we were there to do. We turned off the TV and began to pray. We prayed the rest of the morning. All else was forgotten in the moment as we lifted up our country, the president, and in particular, the families of all those people that were in those buildings and planes.

Later in the afternoon when I went to pick the kids up from school there was an outpouring of concern and grief for our family; not just because we were the only American family in the school, but also because every teacher and staff member there had family in the USA, many of them in New York City. I don’t remember what I said to my kids. Their teachers had already told them what had happened and when we got home we continued to sit in front of the TV to keep up with the surrealistic events. We watched as they replayed over and over the video of the plane crashing into the second tower. I couldn’t turn it off. I knew my kids were watching and I didn’t want them to watch, but I couldn’t turn off the TV. I don’t know how long it was before I finally did just that.

I wanted very much to express my grief publicly with a black wreath on our home but knew that I wouldn’t be able to do so. As Americans living outside the USA we have to be careful with public displays of patriotism to our home country. However, people here were so kind. Everyone we knew called and expressed their sympathy. Life eventually went back to being “normal” but we were changed irrevocably.

We are currently living in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas.  Bulverde Baptist church, about 1/2 hour north of San Antonio, Texas, has graciously lent us this fully furnished house for the six months we are here. It’s one of the prettiest places I’ve ever lived! My daughter, who is 15 years old, is doing a combination of homeschool and online school. Because the view here is so beautiful we have made the outdoors our classroom for the time being. We live in Guayaquil, Ecuador which is a city of around three million people. Our home is cement, as are most of the homes in the city, and they are all very close to each other (around 3-5 feet if you are lucky!). Being able to spend 6 months in a place like this is like a little piece of heaven for us! Here’s a picture of Anna in her new classroom!

We are currently living in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas.  Bulverde Baptist church, about 1/2 hour north of San Antonio, Texas, has graciously lent us this fully furnished house for the six months we are here. It’s one of the prettiest places I’ve ever lived! My daughter, who is 15 years old, is doing a combination of homeschool and online school. Because the view here is so beautiful we have made the outdoors our classroom for the time being. We live in Guayaquil, Ecuador which is a city of around three million people. Our home is cement, as are most of the homes in the city, and they are all very close to each other (around 3-5 feet if you are lucky!). Being able to spend 6 months in a place like this is like a little piece of heaven for us! Here’s a picture of Anna in her new classroom!