Day 8: Tuesday January 11, 2011: Motorcycle Safety Goes Down the Drain.

Stephanie and Lara rinsing clothes

Laundry day number 2! 
This time all the married couples clothes got washed. Being that there was plenty of women helping, I took time to catch up on some journaling....don't get on me for NOT working. You're reading this aren't you! :P 

Steph caught me in a concentrated state

I took some time to sit back and reflect on what has stuck out to me the most while on this trip. The biggest being the hospitality of the Dominicans!! Our house mom, Albina, being the first one that comes to mind. I love her so much and I can't even understand a word she says! No matter, she always has coffee ready for us no matter the time, both morning and night. She is always making sure we're comfortable and looking out for our well being. She even stayed up all night with David when he was sick and she doesn't even speak English! David said that she told him(of course he had to have it translated) that while we are in her house, we are her kids. She has such a servants heart. God Bless her!
But she's not the only one, everyone here is so nice. Always giving up their chairs for us, or getting us chairs. It took a while to get used to, especially the first couple days when they would make me stand up, then get a me a chair to sit in. I don't mind sitting on the ground honestly, but I felt bad that they had extra work to get me a chair! And the people are always so cheerful and smiling! :) It's gonna be weird going back to America where girls are seen as equal to guys and where you walk down a street and no one talks to you. Sheesh, people don't even smile at you unless they know you.

Taking time to enjoy cake ice cream outside Juancito and Dominga's newly plastered house.

Tuesday afternoon, the youth girls helped fold and sort laundry, then we chilled at David and Jewels working on friendship bracelets. By this point we were making them for whoever wanted them. Rubi got one to match her favorite outfit-the Disney princess outfit. And Heather and Rafael got them too. Friendship bracelets, we decided, were an easy gift to make and they were all unique. And to think that I considered NOT bringing my bracelet stuff!! Oh boy, I don't know what we would have done in our spare time without it! :) We also used this time to talk to Jewel about what we've liked and disliked(there were very few dislikes) about the trip as well as learning more things about the people and culture.


Meanwhile, construction work continued at Juancito and Dominga's. Preparations were being made to pour the flooring in the addition as well as take out the old wall in the kitchen. Neil and Mark starting putting the plumbing in on Monday I do believe, and I knew right away when I walked in and smelled that all too familiar smell of purple cement stuff that glues PVC pipe together that there were plumbers in the house! What a blessing to this wonderful family when they have plumbing as well as an indoor bathroom!
The rest of the crew worked on leveling the floors and pouring concrete. The floors are leveled with dirt, then packed tight to get the air out. They dump gravel in and cover it with concrete. To finish the floor, color is added to the top layer of concrete if desired. I'm looking forward to seeing what colors they decide on to paint the outside as well as the inside!

The wall before

and after.

Mark and Neil teaming up to put the bathroom plumbing in at Juancito and Dominga's

I think this is a drain pipe

pouring the concrete floor in Juancito and Dominga's

1 room almost done!

Work also continued with both of the septic holes being dug deeper(nothing too exciting there except dirt). Once the hole is too deep to throw the dirt, a bucket system is used to get the dirt out of the hole. 
The community house project was coming together as the crew continued work on forming and pouring the walls. 

This is the second hole, started before we arrived and was mainly worked on by the DR boys.

Rafael and Marc in the other hole. This one had a lot of rocks

  

Juansa flashing that muy bonito smile as he pushes a load of concrete

Forms up for the inside walls of the house

Hannah, Me and Stephanie riding in the back of a the truck on it's way to church

As 4pm rolled around, we piled into the bed of a truck and headed to the church to pick up the rest of the group for a sight seeing 'trip to the mountains'. Upon hearing that there were too many people for all of us to fit in the truck bed, I took the opportunity to ride a motorcycle/dirtbike! Funny thing was, I was just saying earlier that I wanted to ride one before I left! Juan Carlos was my driver, which I was thankful for, because he spoke English! I'm kinda proud of the fact I broke so many safety rules in ONE RIDE and I'm alive to tell about it. I was wearing flip flops, NO helmet, just a T-shirt and I was riding with a guy I only met 3 days before! :) 

I will say that I loved riding on the back of that dirtbike! Going down the highway with my hair blowing in the wind. I know why dogs love it so much! You just feel...free. I wouldn't have taken this trip any other way. There was something so spectacular about seeing the Dominican countryside and mountains flying by on the back of a dirtbike that made the trip... indescribable! 

the dirtbike crew

We went through a town, or two, and up a dirt road...which turned into a path and everyone on the truck had to get out and walk up this hill to a look out. It wasn't any special marked of place. Nope..we were in someone's front yard! There were chickens, walking around and even a donkey tied right there next to us. 

As we left our first stop, we were blocked by a unique obstacale....domestic poultry combat practice going on in the middle of the street!! Not to worry however, because everyone in our group wanted pictures of this(since cock fights are illegal in the USA). Later on, Jewel pointed out a fight building where they sometimes go 'to the death'.

Fight cage-a run down one at that.

Our final stop on this tour was to Juancito's tomato fields! I LOVE TOMATOES! And I could smell them before I even got off the dirtbike! It was like a little piece of heaven for me as I gazed upon rows and rows of tomato plants, full of red, delicious tomatoes! Tomatoes are in season all year in the Dominican and I would move there just for that reason! We got to pick a tomato or two to eat while we watched the sunset through the coconut, palm and banana trees.
Speaking of coconut trees, David, being the man he is, decided he wanted to climb one, and did so, getting maybe about 1/3 of the way before stopping.

Rubi loves her tomatoes!

 

The beginnings of a sunset

Go David!

....and he stopped...

Tuesday night was a "free night". We were already planning on games..and games we played! The generator got hooked up so we could have light at church as Dominoes, Connect Four, Sequence as well as other games were played between the Dominicans and us. It was almost a sad night as we realized tomorrow is our last full day in Los Toros. But even that dreadful reality couldn't stop the smiles and laughs from bursting forth as we played together!

Marc's expression is pretty evil there...

Hannah teamed with Joel(JO-el) against Moises and Jose Daniel in a game of Dominoes.

Stephanie playing Yuniors in Connect Four

Stephanie, teamed with Moises against Jose Daniel and Joel(Ho-el) in Sequence

Day 7: Monday January 10, 2011: Laundry and Rummykub

Monday is laundry day! Finally clean clothes! I happened to forget a ziplock bag of work shirts, but it worked out nicely because we washed clothes the day I ran out of shirts. :) Today we did all the 'single peoples' laundry. Meaning everyone who didn't have a spouse along, and the youth. 
It was a little different than doing laundry in the states, but thankfully we had 3 washing machines and thus didn't have to do it all by hand! 
   We piled all the laundry into piles of cleanest to dirtiest in the backyard at Jewel's house. The cleanest got washed first since the water was fresh. We filled the washers with water and put the clothes in and let them agitate, then we would wring them out and put them in the other compartment in the washer, which was the 'spin cycle. We then took them out and rinsed them in the rinse bucket and put them back in the spinner to wring out most of the water, then Lara organized them and put them on the clothesline to dry.  The water in the washers would get changed every two washes, or when it got too dirty. The rinse water: every two loads. Like I said, it was a little different than doing laundry in the states, but it was actually a lot of fun....probably because there was a group of us doing it. I wouldn't wanna do it by myself!

The three washing machines

piles and piles of dirty laundry

wringing water out to put clothes in the spinner

"The rinse cycle"

At lunch, we found out we were going on a walking tour of Los Toros to see "all the important places".  I felt like such a tourist. Our tour guides were Henry Reyes and Mildred's husband, Umberto.  Henry had on purple aviator sunglasses with a rhinestone heart in the corner. Hannah and I couldn't help but giggle every time we saw them too! 
Los Toros is much bigger than I thought! We are just on one side of the town! But at the same time, it's not very big if there are 20,000 people living there. We started our tour by the baseball field, which coming from a baseball family, intrigued me. The boys train four hours every morning on this field. Moises is one of them. For many of the boys, baseball is their only ticket out of the Dominican. But I also learned that you have to be tall enough as well. This ballfield is used as a right of way to the fields as well. We walked right through it Sunday when we took our hike. It's not fenced in or separate from the town. It's just a multi purpose field with a backstop and pitchers mound at one end. 

I enjoyed walking around the town, even though it was really hot! We got to see the Town Hall, Schools, Hospital, Library, internet cafe as well as MLB player Pedro Feliz's house. 

The Béisbol field

A veiw from the outskirts of Los Toros

Town Hall.

The Clinic

Ambulance recently donated to the town by MLB player Pedro Feliz

The Dentist chair!

High School classroom

Chevy showing us where we are on a hand painted map on the school wall

By the time we got back, the work day was finished, and successful! Juancito and Dominga's house was plastered! 

The outside of Juancito and Dominga's when we were finished plastering!

After supper, we packed up all the church's sound equipment and loaded ourselves onto a bus and headed to a neighboring town for an outdoor church service. Again, the youth girls graced everyone with our singing and guitar abilities. This time singing Amazing Love.

Now, it was really interesting being in a service where there wasn't a translator!! It was good, even though I didn't understand a word spoken. Some of the songs, we could figure out what they were talking about because they had the words on PowerPoint! :)

  At the end of the service, this little girl was brought up for prayer(we found out later she had a hernia..I think..). Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool and it got me thinking about how here, they don't have all the medication that we do. They just deal with stuff, like ADHD and ADD. Or even other special needs, I don't know, it was just interesting to see how people like that just seemed to be accepted into society. 

Hannah and I were in no way ready to go to bed at 9pm! We were hungry however, so we went to the Cafe de Tres Hermanos to get cheese sandwiches! Then we waited anxiously for the second bus to come back so we could ask Mariela if we could play games! Of course we could!! And we headed over to her house, first with 5 people, then slowly more and more kids showed up ready to play Connect Four against Chevy, or Chess against David! Jamie walked in carrying the game RummyKub, which...to be honest...I automatically associate with old Mennonites! HAH! He asked Hannah, Stephanie and me if we wanted to play. And since Steph already knew how to play she explained to us in English what we were doing!! *sigh*...

...and now...I can not associate RummyKub with old people anymore, because it is a lot of fun! And Hannah and I, being the newbies, had the help of Samuel and Jose Daniel...hehe..much the Jamie's dismay! We played 4 games and everyone got to win except Stephanie! :( 
I said midnight was late enough for game nights, cause we all do have to get up and work in the morning. I don't know how the Domincans do it! They stay up late pretty much everynight and are always up and working before us...??

Day 6: Sunday January 9, 2011: Tarantulas. Mucho grande Tarantulas.

It's Sunday and the girls got to sleep in, while the men made us pancakes! 


Breakfast was held at David and Jewels, and mui bein I must admit. Thank you gentlemen for the pancakes. We even had peanut butter for them! 


Marc thought it quite funny to stick a dead tarantula in Steph's face, thus making her scream! But laughter is always good medicine. Jewel informed us that the boys like to hunt tarantulas on hikes and would probably do so this afternoon. So be prepared.

Neil with the spider found outside David and Jewels Saturday night

    After Breakfast, our team had a small devotion as well as a time of sharing what we're learning on this trip or our highlights. It was somewhat of an emotional time as we got to see how God brought things together for so many people on the trip and one by one we shared how much we've been impacted by the people.  The theme that seemed to be biggest was how well we get along with the people and interact even though we don't and/or can't always understand each other's language. 
The verse in 2Corinthians 12:9 that says: My power is made perfect in weakness kept running through my mind. To see how God was proved strong and faithful through the areas we see as our weakness has been so cool to see and I'm looking forward to seeing how he uses us the rest of the trip. 

walking across the river

on the trail

Two miles is a decent way to walk in 80+ degree weather. And it's off we went to the fields for our afternoon picnic. Two miles on a trail worn down by the hundreds of men that walk it every day to go to work. And the work is all done by hand! Unlike in America where people LIVE on their farms, in the Dominican the farmers live in towns and walk to their fields everyday to work. I don't even know when the last time I saw someone using a hoe to work a field in America was!! I am so thankful for tractors, and milk! They don't drink much milk in the Dominican Republic, mainly because they don't have facilities to store it after they milk the cows. The cows are usually in the fields too, so when they milk them, the milk might sit a couple hours in the heat before they even bring it home. They do make yogurt and cheese though. Milk here is usually powered. It's just not the same. :(


We hiked to the field bought by Work Team Partners for Agriculture development. The shade was quite nice after walking an hour in the sun! 

a view from the trail

We got to try real coconut, straight from the trees. I liked it much better than the coconut stuff we get in the states, and the milk was good as well. We got to watch a guy climb a coconut tree. He stuck his foot in a harness type thing and used it to shimmy up 40 feet with a machete to chop the coconuts. The younger men don't use harnesses, so I heard. 

Neil and Kevin helping make orange juice

Our picnic consisted of sandwiches, macaroni salad, and....OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES! And Mildred made sour orange juice for us right there in the field! Naturally Connect Four came along as well as chess and Monopoly and we all enjoyed some 'game time' in the shade of some pretty big trees. 

The game faces are on

Rafeal's goal was to find a mucho grande tarantula, and off he went on a spider hunt followed by a group of people wanting to catch or see a big spider! We tramped through the fields and woods looking for spider holes. I think the total was three spiders. Pretty big, but not big enough for Rafael! The boys put them on a large stick and Juan Samuel loved chasing girls around with the spider stick. Boys will be boys. :) One of the spiders even crawled up Chevy's pants! *shudders* For the record, I actually enjoyed the spider hunt. I wasn't too freaked out about the spiders, but I wouldn't want to see one in my bedroom! 

Rafael leading the spider hunt

Chevy let it crawl up his leg!

the biggest one we found

 

 

 

We found an aloe plant and David had some pretty bad sunburn

Our walk back was much hotter, but that's kind of obvious since it was the middle of the afternoon!  Marc and Jose Daniel actually raced back! Wow, I would pass out from heat stroke if I tried that! Wearing jeans in the heat isn't so bad actually, and I feel safer with all the spiders I might come in contact with. :)
On the walk back, I noticed something: So you know how in America, when we see boys wearing their ballcaps in weird positions on their heads, we(well I do anyway) tend to look at them as cocky or gansta. Well I noticed that Moises and Josue were wearing their hats funny and at first I was gonna roll my eyes thinking it was a fashion statement just like America, until we went around a turn and they moved their hats. THEN I realized that they are using them to block the sun from their faces!! :)


Believe me, a cold shower never felt better than it did coming in from a hot day. I don't even think they need hot showers here, cold showers are so refreshing after you've sweated so bad you actually had B.O. And the skirt wasn't so painful either! 
While we were waiting our turns in the bathroom, Chevy and I got to talk to Samuel(Samwell) about the beautiful thing we call SNOW! I overheard Chevy asking him if he knew what it was and I mentioned that I had pictures with me to show him. Pictures I might add of the blizzards we got last winter. It's so funny to watch their expressions when they see snow. "No me gusta!" were the words out of Samuel's mouth when he saw pictures of snow up to my waist. 
Samuel is David's nephew. And He lives in the house next to ours, and in Kevin and Jen's while they're in the states. He's 25 and one of the nicest guys I've ever met! He's only been speaking English for 3 months, but he's pretty good. We talked about baseball and snow sports, since Chevy and I both work at Whitetail Ski Resort, we explained skiing and snowboarding. Skiing-you get 2 boards. Snowboarding-1 board. :)


 And now, it's time for church! Jewel asked us if we'd like to sing a song for church. Hannah, Stephanie and myself decided on Blessed Be Your Name with me on guitar. AH! You have no idea...NO IDEA how happy picking up and playing a guitar made me, even though it was electric! I would have played the rest of the night! We got tons of cheers and applause and whistles when we finished of course. :) :) 
    The sermon was called "God Never Forgets our Work". The Bible passages used were: Hebrews 6:10, Matthew 20:8-16. 7:22,23, and Esther 6:23. Thankfully Jewel did the favor of interpreting for us Americans! Although, I will say that I had a hard time paying attention because I was trying to figure out what David was saying before it was translated! He preaches with such body language it's hilarious!! But the sermon was good. Oh yea and their worship was great, I'm loving the beats. Kinda made me want to break out into random dance. And I love watching people worship God! 
When church ended, we went back to Albina's... well after we shook about 50000 peoples hands and said iHola! to pretty much the entire church that is. :) We really weren't sure what they did after church, so we decided to chill and drink coffee made by Albina. Samuel and Jose Luis joined us. Time to practice our Spanish and their English. With Chevy doing an excellent job as the middle man translator, we talked about farming in Pennsylvania as well as some of the things we do differently. I was curious to know whether or not Christians danced. Samuel said NO...but they do to 'good' music. Christian music. I was relieved, I could never survive in a society where I couldn't dance. It was hard enough not busting moves to all the beats we heard from the bars. Samuel asked us if we could understand the words to the songs and when we said 'No', he was glad, because he said they weren't good songs. He asked us if we liked the weather in the Dominican and of course we all said yes! Then we told him what the weather was like in PA currently. You should have seen the size of their eyes when Chevy converted it to centigrade! And poor Samuel like spazzed out! "Mui Frio! Mui mui frio! No es bueno!"  
Over the course of our evening, we were joined by Juan Samuel, Joel(JO-el), and Benedict. While Steph was writing a letter to her boyfriend, which of course brought up the topic of whether  Hannah and I were single and whether we would be interested in a Dominican boyfriend. That was a little awkward. :) Random factoid: It's not out of the ordinary for a 30 year old to marry an 18 year old. They believe love has no age. 
ANYWAY. While Steph was writing, Hannah and I were working on some friendship bracelets. With Samuel holding a flashlight so I could fix my knot mistakes, the boys all watched with fascination as we knotted these bracelets together. I wanted to make everyone a bracelet, but the problem with that is EVERY child would want one and that would be too much work and time.  In this case, I looked over at Juansa and asked him if he wanted one. The smile on his face was enough of an answer for me. I gave them the bag of colors and said "Dos colores". They all picked out two colors and Hannah, Stephanie and myself whipped up bracelets for the group(David and Chevy included). 
I for one am impressed at their color matching skills and the colors they picks. I couldn't even tell you who's was my favorite, although I'll have say Juansa's because I made it, it was the first one, AND blue and green are my favorite colors! 


Around midnight we said goodnight and everyone went their separate ways. I quite enjoyed just chilling with... friends I guess I can call them. And learning some about their lives in the Dominican. Its funny to think that we're "friends'' when we've really only known each other a few short days, and we don't speak the language very well, but I guess that's not everything to friendship. Friendship can't be based on any ONE thing, it's millions of things. Like spending time together, and sharing, and respecting each other, and being patient while the other stumbles over their tenses or phrasing of a sentence, and being able to laugh at each other in a non-mean way. Or just being there to show that you care about the other person.


And I realized that the more we interacted, and the more we showed that we care about them, the more I saw our friendships budding. And I pray these friendships continue to grow as we work together, play together and laugh together.