Canoa Two Weeks on

I cannot believe it is two weeks on from the earthquake already.  And I am really proud to see people still doing their bit.  I mean it is still very recent but even so other news has started to take over.
I had a friend go down to the Coast this week with a charity organisation and he was able to report that things are progressing.  There are still long ques for water and food but shelters are being made and people are getting started with the clean up.

Our school is still sending trucks and the students are doing a fabulous job with fundraising.  I still have loads of animal supplies being donated and am constantly delivering them to a vet with clinics set up there.  
On a very positive note, the man we were trying to get out from the hotel (where I have now learnt that he was the only survivor) is in hospital here in Quito, doing very well he has lost part of one leg but is strong and positive despite this.
Still no word about Dominica.  

Happy Hikers (is from 2012, and somehow jumped to here!)

I have decided to really try and go on at least one fairly big hike a week.  I really enjoy seeing new places this way and also Lola just loves them.   So Elena, an Italian colleague and friend, took us on one on Sunday (I am really not sure where we were, but it was still in Switzerland and close to Basel).  I love the hiking, but I must say the one that gets the most enjoyment is definitely Lola.

Painting Wine Club

Last night the Quito Ladies Wine club was all about helping, white wine and painting.  We took donations to go towards help at the Coast, tried some of Amy and Delaney's favourite wine and attempted to paint a masterpiece.  Each month this group just gets bigger and bigger, it is quite amazing.

I love when there is a theme, and the ladies did a great job.  I cannot believe I only have two left!  Not sure how I will start one in Phuket, as I seem to remember very little wine there.

Dinner with the Wyncoll's

I am trying not to be totally obsessed with rebuilding my blog, but it is so upsetting to lose 800 out of 1066 posts (well pictures in the post). It will take me months to get it half to what it was but I am determined.  One thing I have noticed is how much more I use to blog and how many pictures I use to include. I think maybe I lost interest a bit.  But looking back on my blog has re-inspired me, so now I am right back into it!
Last night we went to the dinner at the Wyncoll's, they are new this year.  Garth is the high school principal and this wife is a counselor in the lower school.  Jodi, Dylan and River also came and I must say it was fairly delicious.  I make veggie chili all the time and it is okay, this was fantastic!

 Dylan getting excited

 Pretty fancy starter cocktail

 Beautiful Flowers

A lovely meal with a special Wyncoll starter message that we all did together.

$540 and Counting

On Saturday night I had friends over for an Animal Relief Event and donations of clothes for the people who have been relocated to Quito.
I am so thrilled that so far we have raised $540 to go towards aid for animals at the cost.  Not to mention loads and loads of medicine, dog food and water.  And clearly this has to be on going so before people leave for the summer I will host another event.

After we delivered the dog food to the Vet who is organising a mass effort to help the animals long term we then organised the donated clothes.  Later in the evening Vanessa and I went to a shelter near a hospital that is housing and helping hundreds of people relocated due to full hospitals at the coast.  It was great to see how much donations have been given but very clear is what they need now is more volunteers.  A very tiring weekend, but feeling great about all the efforts made to help the people and animals of the Coast.

Animal Care Package Event

Dayko (below) was a rescue dog with the Ibarra Fire Department. While working in Pedernales, Dayko helped to locate victims in the rubble. He saved seven lives. But then Dayko wasn't feeling well, suffering from heat exhaustion. Firefighters stabilized him and had him transported back to Ibarra. This morning it was learned Dayko had died. Firefighters buried him during an emotional ceremony. Photo courtesy: Cuerpo De Bombero

Tonight I am hosting an event to support dogs like Dayko, also pets also left without homes, and the livestock that the people rely on there.  Tomorrow we will use the donations to make first aid kits for the animals that need it so badly.

Mixed Birthday Feelings

This birthday was definitely not what I had planned.  It is hard to celebrate life when so many people lost theirs around you.  I woke feeling very wobbly and not sure how I was going to respond to all the people wishing me a happy birthday.  But I have a fabulous fiance and group of friends here that were going to ensure I acknowledged it someway.  The whole day I was spoiled with flowers and well wishes. Luis took me for a lovely lunch and then the girls all came over with food, drinks, donations in my name and more flowers.  It was just what I needed, we did not speak about the earthquake and just enjoyed each other.

But today back on earth quake relief track.  Tomorrow is my first event to help send relief to all the suffering animals at the coast who are in desperate need as well.

The Danes

This morning our Danish guests/friends sadly left to return to Denmark.  Uffe, Emma and Frania will be greatly missed by me and Luis.  Although I am certain we will never lose touch and one day they will visit us in Thailand.  

Yesterday, all of us sent supplies to Canoa on trucks organised by Luis's sisters friend.  When we went to drop off the stuff we helped carry in hundreds of donated water bottles.  It was so moving as so many of them had messages to loved ones or general messages of love and support on them.  And it was so moving to see all the volunteers, and not just there, everywhere.  They then organised all the donations into family packs.

We are setting up other relief programs or activities over the weekend.  There is so much to do and I just wish we could do more.  It is so hard to just try and pretend everything is the same and be expected to just go on with regular life as normal.  I miss the Danes so much already, really lovely people that helped us keep it together more than they realised.  They kept thanking us over and over and I felt so badly as really really they were helping us so much.

Earthquake Update

We have made it back to Quito and our new Danish children are staying with us. It has been great to have them here, it is keeping me busy and we have been through something that will bond us forever.

The relief efforts going to the Coast have been amazing.  Luis's sister's friend had organised trucks to go to Canoa and we sent loads of supplies with them.  I just so wish we could go back too.  I feel so strange and sad here and just want to be there.  I wish I had skills that they needed, as right now they do not want unskilled people there.

Canoa's death toll has risen to 50 (total Coast 500) and 80% of the town is destroyed.  It has been evacuated and loads of aid and rescue workers have arrived.

Through Facebook I found out that the man in the hotel survived but unlikely he kept a leg.  I am still trying to hunt down Dominica.

The people of Ecuador have been amazing and they are all pulling together at this horrible time.  It has been another tearful day, and sure this will continue for some time as we hear more updates from the Coast.

These are a few images of Canoa now.  Words cannot describe how devastating this is.

Ecuador Earthquake

I am struggling with how to start this post and have deleted and restarted many times.  I am not sure I am able to ever capture in words what we saw, went through and just how lucky we were.  
Saturday morning we arrived in Canoa to a beautiful day and had a wonderful afternoon playing in the waves with Lola.  At this moment it would be impossible to conceive just how differently the day would end.  We were in our room, Luis taking a nap and me just relaxing when the the whole place started shaking. Actually shaking does not do it justice, it felt like the world might end at any second and actually it sadly did for many.  But we made it unscathed, we were the lucky ones.
The rest of the night went by like I was watching a movie or in some terrible nightmare.  Luis was amazing and went straight to a little girl stuck under her roof.  The rest of the town was heading to the hills as a tsunami warning went out.  But he would not leave her, and eventually him and the other men got her out.  We put her and her mum in my car determined to get her to a clinic.  What we did not know at the time the place we were headed was even worse off then Canoa.  She was the bravest little girl I have met, Dominica, a name that I will never forget.  She asked me to take her sock off and her toes were hanging off, and she still held it together.  We took her as far as we could, as the bridge was out.  A big truck was going to try and get through off road and they took her.  I will find out what happened but I hope they made it there, as her legs required desperate attention.
We then returned to a Canoa on fire, we went towards the fire thinking it was our hostel street (everything looked very different at this time), and it was horrifying.  I will never get those images from my mind, it was like watching something out of an end of the world film.  We quickly got out of there, dodging polls and electrical wires and found a crew that were setting up head quarters for finding and helping people.  None of these people were rescue workers, all people from the town or visiting the town coming together to help. There were not many people left as many had headed to the hills.  Luis and I were put on duty to find buried people.  We went to help a man buried under three floors with a dead wife/partner/friend beside him.  I tried to get him out with my car, break parts of the hotel to try and free him. But we could not, the hotel looked like it would fall the rest of the way at any second and tremors kept coming. Eventually more came and he got out, whether he would have pulled through at this point, we do not know.  But I will find out.
The next morning, we could see how much of Canoa was lost, how much people lost their homes, lively hoods and sadly much more.  
We are now trying to make it back to Quito, we have three great Danish young people with us.  We have driven through towns full of sadness and wreckage. Roads that are no longer roads.  But we are the lucky ones, and I am still trying to process how I feel about this.  It some how seems unfair, of course I am thankful but I cannot help but feel this great sense of guilt.
Thank you for all the well wishes and the messages of love and support and I hope now some people can find it in their hearts to give to the people of the Coast of Ecuador.

Rebuilding Site

This blog loss, of pictures from 600 plus posts has me in a major spin.  After begging assistance from all tech people at the school, I felt faint when I realised they are all gone.  It is really like writing a book for five years, almost every day (especially the years I lost), and then five sixths of it disappearing.  It also is something maybe ridiculously I am so proud of.  It is the thing I have kept up the longest, and I truly love some of my entries. The more I look at things I have lost the more I have wanted to cry, well did cry, loads.  Most people do not understand, and that is okay, but I am devastated.  Devastated but determined, I will hunt down as many pictures as I can find and rebuild it.  Already I have had so many friends send me a few here and there and it means the world.  It will never be the same but I will do my best.
In the meantime I will create new memories and have new experiences.  Like celebrating wonderful Cody's birthday last night with equally lovely Jimmy too.

After dinner, I went and got Luis and we drove over night to my favourite beach Canoa.  I need a time out from Wedding, move and now searching for blog pictures!  And it is blinking beautiful here...

Jumping Lola

Years ago my fabulous sister gave me and Lola an agility course for my birthday.  Lola loved it but then we moved to Switzerland and never did it again. In the park there is an agility course and yesterday I finally got Lola up there to see what she remembered.  It was such great fun and lovely to see how excited she was to do it again.  I am now going to make this a daily thing.  
It was also the first time I have smiled since I realised that most of my blog is now missing.  Due to some sale/takeover and a stupid app I used to up load photos, it looks like the photos are gone forever.  I suspect I will spend the next month tracking down photos and attempting to rebuild all those blogs :(

Love her :)

British School Phuket

You know when you think you have told everyone something and then you realise that you have forgotten to tell some as you assumed you already had. Well I have found myself in this boat a couple times this week and then I realised I had not really made a formal announcement.  So in July, Luis, Lola and myself will by moving to Phuket Thailand.  I will be starting at the British School of Phuket, Luis will be looking to teach diving, and Lola will just become a lazy beach dog.  We are super excited, although I am slightly stressed (like sleepless nights stressed) how to get Lola there as safely as possible.  

It looks a little imposing, so here's hope I make the cut.  

Obviously, a main concern is that as a family we try to live in 'B' places only (Brookville, Bristol, Basel, Barbados, Brighton, Bruton...) and I even managed it here by living in Baton Alto, Quito.  Well luckily for me, the suggested beach to live on is called Bang Toa (image above), so with any luck this will be the beach that we call home.

Prolonging Reports

Writing reports can be a tedious, long, boring repetitive process.  I get it, it is great to give the students meaningful feedback but it is still a long process.  So usually I leave it, like most things, to the very last minute.  This quarter I was under the impression they were due on Friday April 15th and learnt on Friday afternoon they are actually due on Monday morning 8am.  So what does one do, when they have a hundred reports to write in two days...

Well first they invite the people over who realised that reports were due Monday and consequently finished them for a Margarita Friday.

Then wake up late on Saturday and spend the entire day searching for the best way to get Lola to Phuket.  Trying to get her to go in her crate again and the odd time looking blankly at the report screen.

Which brings me to Sunday morning where I thought I would get more done in a coffee shop with John in a similar boat.  The ice cream chocolate coffee thing and idle chit chat may have gotten in the way a bit. So now it is Sunday at 5pm and I thought it was best to write this blog before settling down to complete these reports.  I of course will check the all in important, never changing, a bit rubbish Facebook first and then I am on it!

Last Year in her 20's

Last night we celebrated Desiree as she entered the last year of her twenties just two weeks before I enter the last year of my thirties.  What I cannot believe is that we are a whole decade apart.  I feel so ridiculously young, I may not look but I certainly feel it.  Sometimes I cannot quite believe that I am meant to be a proper real life grown up, seems crazy.  Anyways, we went to a lovely sushi restaurant where I was reminded again of the fact that I hate sharing food. I think it is just better to order what you want.  Maybe sharing with one or two people, but not more.  But it was what it was and I will have to say the food was delicious and me and Jodi did end up ordering some extra stuff at the end, so it worked out well.  
We had a lot of laughs over the meal, and I was really glad I went as I am on a self imposed house arrest again.  

And not only was it Des's birthday but also the first day of sunshine in weeks.  I think I could not have handled any more rain, and today the sun is shining brightly again, fingers crossed it does for two more weeks.