Ten Days of DtiDti

* this entry dedicated to a dear friend -- someone who digs in trashcans to find food for a mangy pup; someone who doesn't mind getting lost; someone who somersaults with the tumbling of waves; someone who loves her daughter, her dogs, her family; someone who resonates with the warmth of home. *

a few moments with DtiDti:













sunrise



* this entry from 6/9 *
The Joining of Clouds, Concha de Perla, Isla Isabela

Today, we plan to not plan. Carpe diem. We walk the dirt road to the pier, snorkels and flippers in hand.

A walk down a wooden plank, through a mangrove swamp, its roots twisted and woven, submerged in the water below. The walkway leads to a sparkling pool of ocean.



The lulling crashing of waves against a crest of lavarock. Warm currents sweep through the clear water. Striped fish poke at fuzzy rocks. A sealion swirls in the water. Below the surface everything is calm; there is a peaceful quiet in the underwater world.



In the distance, a figure approaches. A marine iguana? A sea turtle? The obscure shape grows and soon reveals itself to be a leaf.

"Unplanned," Stella says. She's smiling. "You walk out not expecting anything and you come back with a whole lot of amazing. I mean, five stingrays, sea lions, a leaf.."

We laugh.

Blue patches of sky. Clouds come together, stretch over the horizon like an opalescent rainbow.



* this entry from 6/12 *
Treasure-hunters, Tortuga Bay, Santa Cruz

Dtidti is stretched out on the sand, a book spread open before her. She's reading about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. She talks about how leather shoes were boiled to provide flavor for "soup", talks about how the displaced walked through arid desert, northward, hundreds of miles.

Conversation continues and we think about the Individuals in the mid-1900's who ventured over sea and land towards the California coast -- in the direction of gold -- travelling through the vast expanse of unknown, guided by their hopes to find the treasure they sought.





* this entry from 6/15 *
The Last Supper, Quito

"Sometimes God comes to us in different forms -- as a stranger, as a good friend," DtiDti says.

We cheer glasses of wine and mojitos, pick forkfuls of fish from one another's plate.

"The fact that we wake up to the sun -- that's good enough for me," she says. She tells her daughter to pray and be thankful for another day.

Stella is in the moment, her altruistic nature -- the lists she makes of things to include in a care package, the gifts she buys for everyone else first. She would take her flipflops off, donate them, and walk barefooted.

Earlier today, while enroute to Otavallo, a town a few hours outside Quito, we appreciated a scene: a small girl gave her ice cream cone to an elderly man digging in a trash can.



Thank You, Stella.