Morningstar Tour 2011 Ecuador - Day1

First, my apologies for not getting this up sooner. It always takes a few days to get in the mode-----------------------

Heroes - The theme of the tour it seems. Every year on tour Kieri develops a theme and a series of devotionals and activities to drive home life skills to enhance the MStar performer's life experience.

Morningstar is not an activity that you throw your kids into and watch idly by or put on the calendar as a weekly "lesson" or "practice". Morningstar requires more of its participants, their parents and some cases the whole family. Even though this all encompassing nature of the troupe is explained at the front end to both performer and parent(s), most families rarely comprehend what they just signed up for. Morningstar is not for everyone, and for some very unnatural. But all who have taken part in a tour and brought into a Morningstar year admit that the experience though hard, is worth the time, effort and money. They would also admit that they could not have had the experience they did without heroic efforts from Kieri, from their fellow performers who have remained dedicated to the values and participation regimen, from dedicated parents who see the value of the group in comparison to other activities their young adult has to choose from or coordinate with.

Morningstar only happens because of the constant heroic efforts of everyone involved. I would like to tip my hat to those who have given more than was asked, that have volunteered when asked and especially those who have without being asked. Parents, you have a given Morningstar a great group this year and I am so excited to be on tour with them in Ecuador.

The tour really started for me early in the day on Saturday when I met with Dagny and I realized how hard it was for her to miss her first Morningstar tour ever. We will miss both Dagny and Kieth. The pack day was long and confusing, but it made sure we had everything we needed - except for Kieri's portable iPod boombox charger and iPod which was left at the last moment. We are still working to resolve the repercussions of that one. Thanks to Kurt VanLueven, Kasha Coombs and Jocelyn Ives for getting us to airport in one piece. The airport process was the smoothest I have ever experienced. Some of that positive experience was due to luck, some was due to efforts of Friendship Ambassadors to keep Taca informed and most can attributed to great attitudes of the performers and helpful chaperones.

The flights - SFO to San Salvador, San Salvador to Guayaquil - were uneventful until we arrived in Guayaquil. We entered the country just fine, but when we went to collect our boxes and luggage we were short nearly 20 pieces. We were in the process of filling out the lost luggage forms when the carousel started up again and one by one they appeared. Customs questioned our tech equipment thinking we might be bringing it in to sell it, but even though the speakers were brand new and in their original boxes, we gathered all the tech equipment together and they finally got that we were a performing group, not potential black market dealers of roque technology.

Upon landing, we immediately felt the thickness of the warm, tropical air. Our cardboard boxes seemed to wilt a bit just getting off the airplane. We met our Friendship Ambassador (FA) host, Victor and our guide for the week Jose. They have already proved their worth in changing small and large details for us as the slowly understand what our needs are and what we are about. Each year presents different challenges to establishing a smooth flow for the tour. Each year FA helps adjust the local tour companies to step up to this challenges. Our first one this year is find a follow truck to carry all our boxes and luggage. They did arrange for a van, but not large enough for all of our stuff so we had to pile the rest inside the bus. It is only going to get worse because right now all of the costumes are packed in very stackable boxes, but after the first show they will remain on racks to allow the costumes to air out after each show. Joe and Victor are working on that problem. We checked into our first hotel, had our first dinner of chicken, rice and vegetables and fresh juice. Of course there were those that didn't touch their food, and those that chowed. But that happens every tour. The rule from now on is that if you don't eat off your plate, you have to bring food to dinner from a personal cache that you will eat.

The next thing that happened was a first. While we have gone jogging in the morning before in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Phillipines and Taiwan, I have never had a group go out at night in a unknown neighborhood, the night we land. There were about 6 performers and 5 chaperones accompanied by Victor that covered about 5-7 miles up to a lighthouse from which they could see the entire city. They reported feeling very safe, though conspicuous, and loved seeing Guayaquil at night. About an hour later (midnight), everyone settled in for the night, mostly.

Most memorable moments:
Seeing Kurt head to San Bruno rather than the airport exit, Celley Bodily making friends with everyone she had to talk to including the passport officers in Guayaquil, Lisa Hull rallying everyone for a late night Ecuadorian run, the look on Jose's face when he saw the number of boxes we had to load in the small van.

End of Day 1