Confluence: RD Dias 6 y 7

March 15-16, 2011

Sorry this is a long one!

Things about the Dominican Republic

Yesterday I learned that my initials are the same as the Spanish initials for la República Dominicana.

One of my favorite things about la RD is how late everything is. When you go to church at night, you know that you'll eat afterward—you ate lunch late so you're not hungry before church, and then you have something to look forward to afterward! You also don't waste food (or anything else) here. It's a refreshing break from American excess.

Another thing I love (Ashley loves this too) is the sounds while you're falling asleep and waking up. Mopeds, speakers on trucks, fiestas, people talking and children playing, roosters boasting and dogs arguing—it all floats in the window to either lull you to sleep or tell you that the world is awake so you should be too.

Why does it float in the windows, you might ask? The architecture here is so different and beautiful. At least here in the city, every door and opening is covered with wrought iron bars (it may sound like jail, but it doesn't look like it—you feel safe and you can leave windows and doors open without worrying about anybody coming in. Although yesterday while we were driving someone saw a man slip through the bars into a garage!) The houses are not sealed to the outside like they are in the States. When we went to visit the Carol Morgan School yesterday, the walkways between classes were covered outdoor walkways. The classrooms had shutters to the "hallway" (which was really more of a balcony). The cafeteria was more like an open restaurant at Disney World.

In the houses, all the floors are tile, even where you park your car, and there are little steps between each room. Ashley and I have tripped more on this trip (the curbs have a little gulley between them and the road, and the sidewalks and roads are often bumpy) than I have ever before in my life. It's worth it, though.

One more thing that is very different here is the driving. If someone is trying to cut you off, you don't let them (if you were there first). There are very few traffic lights, but somehow the gridlocks at every intersection keep moving. People walk between the cars selling cookies, flowers, water, sunglasses, cell phone chargers, and windshield washes in areas where the traffic is backed up. (These are mostly Haitians; it breaks my heart to see young boys trying to earn a few pesos. I always wonder why God gave me the life I have while He gave others poverty.) Horns are honked liberally, but as Ashley said, they're more to say "Hey, I'm here," than "I'm mad at you and I'm going to be road raging all the way to my destination now." You drive as close to all the other cars as you can get—why waste space—and you only slow down to make it through ruts and craters. You don't worry about how many people your car is supposed to hold—again, why waste space—and no one thinks twice about loading seven adults plus a baby into a five-seat sedan. And although the majority of the windshields are plagued with sprawling cracks, I haven't seen an accident or scrape since we've been here (yet in Virginia a couple of weeks ago Ashley and I saw a car on the highway tear off the front fender on a guardrail).

Tuesday

Yesterday we woke up relatively early and took a cab to the Carol Morgan School, an international school in Santo Domingo, to see David and Diane Bahrenburg. They taught at my high school in Vermont and are now teaching here for two years. It was wonderful to see friends from home! The school is beautiful and the students were helpful in answering questions for Ashley's education research.

Girls eating lunch at the Carol Morgan School

Diane and Ashley

After a quick trip to the bank (to exchange dollars for pesos), the supermarket (to get chocolate chip cookie supplies) and the Yogen Fruz stand (to get coconut pineapple frozen yogurt), we took a taxi back to the Santos'. The taxi driver (who had already tried to get Ashley to overpay—she's a smart American, though!) pulled over and said he was waiting for something, and almost half an hour later a man came out of the building we were parked next to with two huge boxes of huevos.

At church last night a group from Washington DC visited—they are on a weeklong project to finish one a sister church buildings. It was fun to talk to them—one, named Ella, didn't speak any Spanish either, so we could relate to each other well.

I won't see a lot of the people from church again, at least not for a long time. A few asked when we are coming back. I think this is the hardest part of traveling: putting all of your energy into relationships for a few days or weeks, and then leaving them behind.

Wednesday

Dear journal,

Today we woke up early to try and go to a school, but ended up going to see the church that's being built instead.

Later, after picking up Hernán from school and eating lunch, we were going to go to a nearby cave but instead we all fell asleep for hours. I woke up hotter than I've been since we got here. Then we went for a walk on the beach and went to teach English at the church again. We sang a lot of songs, and even when the power went out we kept singing in the dark—what a blessing to worship the Lord even when the lights go out and life is not what we thought it was. We played "zip-bon" (you have to keep your lips over your teeth while going in a circle saying "zip" or "bon"—it's as weird as it sounds, but it's super funny) and then came back to the house and told jokes with the fam (including blond jokes and bilingual jokes). After that we skyped Tyler and Justin (his roommate, who loves the Buckeyes) for a few minutes.

And now I'm up way past my bedtime. Buenas noches, diario.