So...we should do this again sometime...

While we are here in Ecuador, Taylor and I are growing and learning in the gift of hospitality. We love to host our neighbors and have had a few women from our Zumba classes over for brunch or dinner. We want to show them love through our hospitality, and also show them a different view of Americans. Through my relationships with Ecuadorians here I hope to possibly break a few Western stereotypes. One stereotype that can be challenged is that Americans don't cook that much and have extra money to go out to eat with friends a lot. This might be true for some lifestyles, but I want to show them that we can cook :) haha or at least are learning how to cook. So far we have made scones and pizza with the women and the food has been successful. The conversation on the other hand has been... well interesting. Like I said we are growing in the gift of hospitality. Some of the women we have over carry on conversations with us easily, while some others just sit and answer our questions. Their answers are very simply and they do not elaborate. The funny thing is that the social cues we are accustomed to in the States do not really translate to Spanish. For example, when we say "This was fun! We should do it again sometime" they do not understand that we are politely saying, 'ok the party is done and you can go home now'. Some ladies understand it, but what happens more often than not is that the ladies who do not carry on conversations are the same ones who do not pick up the social cues. Many times, Taylor and I have found ourselves searching for new conversation topics for these times and I have had to stop myself from laughing out loud at how funny this scene looks. We are just sitting there, on the couch or at the table, with no more food on plates and our tea/coffee mugs are empty, and Taylor or I trying to start a new convo which last for maybe 3 minutes. It is quite funny afterwards but at the time it is really hard to know how to politely say 'leave' after 5 previous attempts. One proven method is to say how tired we are and that we will head to bed early :). So as we are learning about hospitality we are also learning new social cues! Hopefully we can pick up some new ones or less the ladies might adopt a new stereotyp- that we like to go to bed early every night!