“What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!”

Happy-Thanksgiving-Christmas-Merry-New Years! What a cool experience it was celebrating the season in a different country/climate!  You know how people have bucket lists? Well, I don’t have one (I should probably make one) but I think in some dusty corner of my mind, I knew I always wanted to celebrate the holiday season in a different country!   So, for those of you who have read this each month, maybe you noticed that I happened to skip altogether posting in December. Like they say…it’s the most  wonderful busy time of the year! I can’t believe that it’s already January!! 5 months have passed in the Dominican Republic. It seems like an eternity that I’ve been here!  And it also seems like nothing at all! These last two months went by so rapidly and at the same time it seems like forever since the last post. The last time I posted, though, things were a little difficult! Beautiful, but difficult! But I’m happy to report that Tom is on the mend and almost fully recovered (THANKS BE TO GOD!) and it looks like he’s going to live a happy mostly normal life ( Tom and “normal” aren’t usually used together), minus 10 inches of his bowel! J If you don’t call living in different countries while the other undergoes major surgery “marriage prep”, I don’t know what is! Through sickness and in health….we’ve got that part covered! Haha! I’ll be happy when I can give him an abrazo grande and check out his sweet new scar!

I finally got to go to a Dominican baseball game in November!! Two actually!! Baseball is a HUGE sport in this country and an important cultural aspect as well. The two games that I went to were really great! All the rules are the same as American baseball, but there is a noticeable difference in skill level of the players. They say that there are scouts for American baseball at almost all the games, so any player that is remotely “good” gets snatched up to go play in the USA. Like any other baseball game, they had overpriced drinks, pizza, and empanadas. And the fans are CRAZYYY!!! I mean really…you thought fans in the US were crazy about baseball…come to a game between Licey and the Torros!! Licey was the home team, and I don’t think there was a second that the Torros fans sat down or stopped chanting! Loudly…with blow horns. Two rows behind us!

Lots of other stuff happened in November too! There was a 3 day festival honoring Ciudad Colonial, the neighborhood I live in with free entrance to all the museums, concerts, a ballet (Swan Lake!), and vendors. We had a beautiful Thanksgiving celebration at our casita, and I cooked my first turkey! (more on this experience in a moment! It involves turkey feet…real turkey feet.) We also went to an awesome presentation of Christmas lights in one of the parks in Santo Domingo! They had a total of 27 million lights that you could walk through and enjoy! We actually wound up going twice! One thing is for sure! The Dominicans love their Christmas lights! Not just in this park, but everywhere! People have had their houses decorated for Christmas since the beginning of October! And they don’t take them down until after Jan 6^th, which is the day of the three-kings (side note: In the DR, the day of the three kings is the day that kids get presents, if families give our presents. NOT Christmas day.) I guess that’s what happens when you don’t have Halloween and Thanksgiving to decorate for! I’m a sucker for Christmas lights, so I can blissfully say I enjoyed them for almost 3 straight months this year! No complaints from this girl!

So, let’s re-visit my Thanksgiving experience and my first time cooking a turkey. My friends here wanted to celebrate this American holiday. We wanted it to be very “traditional” with mashed potatoes and corn and stuffing and a beautifully roasted turkey like you see in all the Norman Rockwell pictures. Of course I volunteered to make the turkey. I’m supposed to know how to do this, right? We do it every year…well, my grandma does it every year. So, it’s two days before Thanksgiving and we are talking about the turkey. We need a non-frozen turkey because we don’t have time to thaw the sucker out. Mercedes, the older lady who I live with, was given the task of purchasing the turkey…non-frozen, please. So, in my mind she was going to go to one of the bigger grocery stores in Santo Domingo, grab a turkey that’s nicely wrapped in air tight plastic and I can just take the nicely wrapped bag of goodies out of the inside and get to work. No big deal. I arrived home from school the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Mercedes was beaming. She found a turkey! We go to the fridge and she reaches in and gets a thick (and abnormally long) black garbage bag from the top shelf. I ask her in Spanish, “This is the turkey?” And she replies, “Yes!” still beaming.   

Thanksgiving dinner!

 We plop the bag on a table and she starts to untie when two turkey feet poke out of the top! Complete with turkey doo from their turkey pen this morning when this turkey was still alive. If I thought my heart stopped there, it stopped again when I saw that this turkey still had a neck, a few feathers for plucking, and all the insides were NOT in a nicely wrapped little baggie. They were just THERE. Attached to the body, still inside this freshly killed skinny little turkey! This was not your normal Normal Rockwell turkey for Thanksgiving. So, I did what I thought I needed to do…. I asked someone else to cut off the feet and neck and take out all the guts for me. I just couldn’t do it! And then I washed that sucker inside and out for a LOOOOONG time! I mean seriously…it had turkey poo on his FEET!!! In the end, and after I was slightly traumatized by our very real turkey, we had a beautiful end product. The turkey turned out great and we had a beautiful meal with some even more wonderful people! It will probably be one of the Thanksgivings that I remember most, not only because of cooking my first “real” turkey, but also because of the fellowship we shared and how much it meant that my friends here didn’t want this holiday to pass by without a celebration! I certainly was thankful for them this year!

Beach on Palmar de Ocoa surrounded by mts

I’ve really been missing my students the last month or so because I’ve been on break since the second week of December! All public schools take tests the last week before holiday break and I wasn’t able to teach my English lessons during those times L. So, I did what anyone would do…I went to the beach!! My friend Zoila is working at her medical school internship in a small town named Sabana Buey that is close to a bay on the south side of the country. We went to the beach of course, and the beach there was GORGEOUS! It was a little bay with dark blue water surrounded by cascading mountains on all sides! But the thing that I enjoyed most from my trip to spend time with Zoila was getting to help with their end of term medical school project! They were going to all the residence in this tiny city that were over the age of 70 and asking health related questions, taking vitals, and spreading the word that “Hey! If you’re sick, come to the clinic! We are nice people!” Because we found that there were people who hadn’t been to see a medical professional almost NEVER in their whole lives!! The two girls I was with were actual doctors, so they just called me their nurse when explaining to these people why the white-girl-who-doesn’t-speak-much-spanish was there. I took people’s weight, height, pulse, respirations, blood pressure, and listened to them tell their life story (really…sometimes people would tell us their life story!) It was a really cool experience to get to meet these families! One family even invited us back to their house that night to eat habichuelas con dulces, which is a sweet bean soup kind of dessert. Also, a guy who plays for the Minnesota Twins triple A team lived at this house that we went to for the sweet beans and I got to chat with him about American baseball and the stadium in Louisville and his trips to my home state! It’s a small world after all…

At the mañanita...approx 5AM

For the holiday’s, I went to my friend Juanny’s house in Santiago Rodriguez and got to spend about a week and a half with her beautiful family! I obviously missed my own family an ton during this time because it was my first Christmas season away from home and our own traditions and excitements. One of the first days that I was there her family participated in what’s called a mañanita. This is a tradition held on days in December in their Dominican city to walk the streets singing Christmas songs blaring from giant speakers in the back of a truck…at 5:00 in the morning!  Then everyone who participated gathers for a morning mass in the street and then after mass everyone drinks ginger infused hot chocolate! Let’s be honest, when I woke up the morning of the mañanita, I wasn’t really in the mood to walk miles through the streets of Santiago Rodriguez singing Christmas songs. What I really wanted to do was just tell Juanny’s family that I’ll pass on this particular Dominican tradition and I’ll see them back at the house when it’s all over. I’m so happy that I didn’t do that! Once we started walking and Christmas songs like “Feliz Navidad” and “Mi Burrito Sababero” (my new favorite Dominican Christmas classic - you can listen to it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=638T3fAN11s) started jammin’, I really got into the Christmas spirit! It was like that moment in How the Grinch Stole Christmas when the Grinch realized that Christmas came without ribbons, it came without tags. It’s not that I never thought that before, but when I was in the middle of the street dancing with strangers to Spanish Christmas songs at 5AM on our way to make a mass in the middle of the road, it really just hit me. The most important thing is waiting and anticipating and celebrating the arrival of JESUS! He was coming, and we were gonna welcome him with open, dancing arms! It was a very cool experience for me! Probably one of the coolest Christmas traditions I’ve taken part in before! I am really grateful I got to experience that and I hope to bring that tradition of walking in the streets at 5AM and blasting Christmas songs to Flaherty, KY as soon as possible! Haha!

With the family I was staying with (my Dominican family J ) we also took a trip to a very special place that I’ve been wanting to visit: the house of the Mirabal sisters in Salcedo. The Mirabals were 4 sisters who in the 1950s lead resistance and protested against the dictatorship of one pretty terrible (for the most part) Dominican man named Trujillo. To name a few things that they went through fighting for a better government for their country: their father was tortured by the government and eventually died from the stress, one witnessed a massacre by Trujillo’s men, two were put in prison and tortured, their husbands were put in jail and tortured. They started a movement to fight to end Trujillo’s leadership and within the movement the sisters were known as “Las Mariposas” – “The Butterflies”. One day, after a trip to visit their husbands in jail, three of the sisters and the driver of their car were stopped by Trujillo’s men and clubbed to death. Their death enraged many people in the Dominican and the Catholic Church and brought more people to the resistance against Trujillo. He was assassinated 6 months later. Now, the house that they lived in with their families the last 10 months of their lives is a museum. And I finally got to go to this house and walk where the Three Butterflies, pillars of hope and persistence in the face of injustice, spent their last days. It was very surreal experience. The museum even has the long braid of hair from one of the sisters. It still has leaves and dirt in it from her attack.  Now, many Dominican’s hang three butterflies outside the doors of their house as a symbol of the Dominican courage, dignity and strength…you bet that I already bought us a group of butterflies for my and Tom’s house in Indy!

 

We celebrated Christmas together with Juanny’s family and it was really a beautiful time to get to laugh and share! The mass we went to for Christmas Eve was very beautiful, complete with a recreation of the nativity story (and lots of glitter thrown everywhere by the Angel  of the Lord!). And then that night, we had a HUGE dinner with the rest of their family! Actually, this night, Christmas Eve, is like Thanksgiving to the Dominicans. This night is actually called “día de acción de gracias” which is literally “Thankgiving” but it’s on Christmas Eve. Their main meat is a wonderfully roasted piece of pig leg! And along with our pork, they had typical Dominican chicharon which is crispy pork fat (aka…pork rinds, but better). I got to talk to my family on the phone that night a few times, which was great to feel a little connected to them, but it was also great to get to eat and play games with my Dominican family as well!

Since this post is getting a little long (IT’S BECAUSE IT’S TWO MONTHS FOLKS….SORRY!!) I will save the rest of the month’s stories for another post later! My family (Mom, Steve, and Rachel) actually visited the DR and we frolicked and gallivanted about the country for a few days and celebrated the new year together! But those stories can wait! If you really did finish this entire post in one sitting, give yourself a pat on the back! Way to go! Hopefully my next post is not quite so long and unbearable!

I started off this New Year with a big smile on my face with my family and knowing I have one more beautiful, exciting, short month here! I’m going to try to love as much as I can the people around me and give all I have to God and what his plans are for me here! Let’s see what he has in store for me for the beginning of this wonderful year 2014!! 

"How incredibly beautiful it is to suffer"

Wow…if there is a month that will go down in DR history it will be this one! I feel like so much has happened in such a little amount of time. And this month I marvel at how much God fills us up with his love in every moment, even in the ones where we feel totally abandoned and are at the deepest pit of anguish, he is there! One of my friends recently posted on Facebook (and I hope she reads this and knows she inspired me all month!) “I wish we could all realize how incredibly beautiful it is to suffer. Even if I had been placed on this Earth only to experience the most gruesome of sufferings, I would still want to live through each and every one.” Either she was super inspired by the Holy Spirit, or she got the quote from some really awesome movie! But this has gotten me through a lot this month!

In terms of missing home, this month has been the worst! A few things have attributed to this, I believe. My mom sent a package to me through USPS to the Dominican postal service…. #1, apparently this was a BAD IDEA. The postal service here is VERY unreliable. In fact, from what I’ve read online and what I’ve talked to others who live here, I’m probably never GOING to get the package. The postal workers (and service workers in general) here don’t really care that much about their customers. So I’m pretty bummed about the fact I didn’t get a package from home, but let’s hope some person who really needed two pairs of TOMS shoes and two pairs of jeans actually got/took the package. Another thing is that I feel like so many things are happening and I’m not at home! This is a big suffering for me to miss my nephew’s birthdays, or to miss my little sister’s college club volleyball games, or to miss my birthday at home. I know that my family is happy I am here and I know I want to be here, but missing them still happens, ya’ll! It doesn’t go away! Also, let’s mention that my BFF since 2^nd grade is about to have her first child…! And I’m going to miss his first little moments in this world… L

Many of you also know that Tom, my future hubby, my rock, my sweet sweet man had to undergo a very urgent surgery this last week to remove a part of his intestines. This is where the beauty of much of my suffering has happened for the last week or so this month. It was so hard. It is still hard to not be there with him during this time.  And I can’t even imagine what it was like for Tom (who is still recovering at this moment, but he is doing well, THANK YOU JESUS!). It was hard to be so far away and feel completely and utterly helpless. To literally be on the floor crying, begging God to please, please, please keep him safe while the surgery was happening. In those moments, I know that I was as close as I have ever been to Jesus on the cross when he cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” How incredibly beautiful it is to suffer!! To know that even in THOSE moments, when I thought there was nothing, there was something….LOVE! HIS love. Pretty awesome, huh? Tom’s surgery went very well the doctors say, and they are hopeful that this will help a lot in the future as well! God is good! And I probably can’t say enough thanks to all the people who prayed that everything would go well and visited him in the hospital and gave me hugs when I thought I was falling apart. But biggest thanks to God for getting us through that part of our journey…it’s not over, but it’s beautiful to see the love we have for each other and for God flourish even more in these moments.  

Now, in this month, I’ve also had many REALLY awesome experiences, too!! And I truly believe that we don’t walk this journey alone and that you have people and situations in your life to help you embrace and feel love in EVERY moment! We had a retreat in Santiago with some of the young women around the Dominican Republic! It was an awesome retreat to build a really strong relationship with the other girls and also to see Santiago! Santiago has got to be my new favorite city in the DR! Beautiful parks! Beautiful monuments! And YAROA (pronounced ja-ar-o-ah), my new favorite food of the DR! Yaroa is essentially this: thick French fries topped with a mix of chicken and beef meat, ketchup, mayonnaise, and cheese!!! Oh my goodness Yummy!  I also got to go to my first discotec this month! Wahoo! Let’s just say that some Dominican dancers are intimidating…man they are good! And during this first outing, I (yes, me! Outgoing Amber Rose Brown!) was afraid to dance that much! I don’t want people to look at me and say “Wow! That white girl is lookin’ ridiculous!” But I also know I need practice with the dances! So, it was good that one weekend this month, I went to a concert of Ramon Orlando (one of the best merengue singers in the DR) and we danced all night! And I was with people who were okay with me messing up the steps a little and maybe stepping on their feet during parts of the dance. Which was really great!

I celebrated my first big holiday in the DR this month: HALLOWEEN!!! J This is not a holiday that is celebrated by many people here in this country. In fact, many people here dislike the holiday because of misconceptions about why people celebrate the holiday or religious beliefs. I LOVE HALLOWEEN, though! And I wanted to bring the joy and funness of the holiday to the students who I teach this month because this is not something they have experienced before! For two weeks we learned about this holiday and what people do and how much fun it is for kids! On the week of Halloween, we looked at a presentation of lots of different costumes for kids on Halloween, then the students picked a costume, drew themselves in the costume, and they got to “go trick-or-treating”! J They all left the room and came back in, knocked on the door, said “TRICK-OR-TREAT!” and got some candy for Halloween! I loved sharing this tradition with them, and they were super excited to get candy and get to go “trick-or-treating” for the first time! J Also, one of the 3^rd grade classes (who knew my birthday was the day after Halloween) had
a wonderful surprise for me! When I came that week, the super sweet teacher told me they had planned something for me. She gave me a sheet as a ghost costume, and told me I had to walk around to all the “houses”, aka desks, of the students and knock on their doors for trick-or-treating. She, the teacher, had hand made me a cute little orange pumpkin trick-or-treating basket. I walked around the whole class “trick-or-treating” and each of the kids, these beautiful, sweet, generous kids, had bought me candy for my birthday! These kids who don’t really have anything, who a piece of candy is like a piece of gold, brought ME candy for my birthday. And they loved giving me this gift!  A tiny, but significant gift of the love and kindness that they have! It’s probably one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever gotten, from those sweet kiddos from Café.

Another very awesome thing happened for my birthday! My friends actually threw a surprise Halloween themed birthday party to celebrate!! And it wasn’t easy to accomplish either!! They don’t sell Halloween decorations in the DR, so my friends hand-made paper pumpkins and spider webs out of trash bags to decorate! When I walked into our backyard garden area, they all were there, IN COSTUMES! Almost 20 people celebrating their first Halloween party! Haha! We ate candy and cake and even had a “run way” to show off all the costumes! We also walked around the Zona Colonial in our costumes giving out all the extra candy we had telling people “Happy Halloween!” haha! AND on our walk around the zona, I got serenaded by a mariachi-type band for my birthday! It was amazing and beautiful and I felt really loved by everyone who helped and came and celebrated with me! It will be a birthday I’ll never forget, for sure!

Well, this next month I’m going to try to bring another American holiday to the DR: THANKSGIVING!  I’m really excited about teaching my students about this holiday as well and continuing to walk on this wonderful journey I’m on! I count on your thoughts and prayers, and know you have mine! :) 

Let’s talk about mondongo…

Okay, so when someone says to you “Just try it! I’ll tell you what it is afterwards” you can automatically assume that whatever it is they want you to eat is probably something you usually wouldn’t, right? I guess that the surprise of what the mystery food actually is will be ruined when it looks EXACTLY like what body part it came from. Well, after this month, I can tell you that cow intestine stew (aka…mondongo) looks like cow intestines (see the picture) when prepared. And I can tell you that I don’t like it. Yuck!  However, I can also tell you that in the last month I’ve tried some foods that I DID like, including:  fresh coconut/coconut milk; quipe, a type of fried wheat; pastelito, a fried pastery w/ meat inside; and fried chicken feet (yes…the feet) . You can take a girl away from the Southern fried foods, but you can’t take the Southern fried foods away from the girl…! Aside from the mundungo, papaya, and pig’s feet stew, the DR is proving itself to be a mecca of yummy and delicious new food adventures for me!

This second month of being here in the Dominican has also brought me other exciting and different experiences! I got to see first-hand the effects of a strike on public transportation…apparently people in the DR make strikes and protests for a lot of things, and this type of demonstration happens more than a few times a year. A co-worker and I walked from the school for about 20 minutes to the only transportation stop working at the time. We waited for an hour for a bus that wasn’t already full, and when we DID get on the Onsa bus, people were nearly stampeding to get in the door. We saw a lady with a baby get pushed aside several times by people who were in too big of a hurry to jump in front of her to care.  A few private owned taxis were also working, but they jack up the prices so high when strikes on public transportation happen, that it was worth it to wait; stampede and all. But, the good thing is I now know how to take the Onsa! And a very nice old man insisted on giving me his seat, so I smiled the whole way home because of his generosity J

I also had the pleasure to help prepare and attend the wedding of the aunt of one of the girls I live with! My first wedding in a different country!! How awesome! It was a small and beautiful reception, with only close family and friends attending! But don’t think that the lack of massive numbers of people prevented us from having a true party! We danced for hours to merenge and bachata, and I would now consider myself an apprentice at both dances! A few things caught me off guard because they were different that the typical US wedding traditions. One thing is that the couple picks “godparents” for their wedding. These people are special people in the couple’s lives and are the ones who sign the marriage certificate and who stand with them during the ceremony (oh…and they have to buy the cake and the alcohol for the reception). Also, my mouth almost hit the floor when they brought in a 5 layer GIANT cake. It was beautifully decorated with butterflies and flowers, but I couldn’t fathom how 50 people could eat all of THAT and not turn diabetic by the end of the night. It turns out that this monstrous cake was completely fake…only meant to take pictures with. They had another (real) cake made for eating purposes, which was very good, might I add. At the end of the night I felt totally blessed to be there and be with an amazing family and wonderful couple!

Another fun experience I had was going to my first movie in a Dominican theater! You would think that this experience would be the same as a typical trip to the movies…but you would be wrong. A little. Most of the experience is the same: you buy your ticket, you get a popcorn, you sit down, you enjoy the movie. However, like true Dominicans, the people ignore the whole “Don’t talk while the movie is playing” rule. We went to see the new “City of Bones – The Mortal Instruments” movie. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. We were two of maybe 5 people in the whole theater…apparently this wasn’t a very popular movie in the DR. To my utter entertainment, a man sitting behind us felt very inclined to vocalize his opinions during the whole film. Loudly. I may have enjoyed listening to his personal emotional rollercoaster more than I enjoyed the movie itself. Because I also like to talk during movies, I think I’ve found my movie watching niche here in the DR! I’ve heard that during comedy movies people are much more talkative, so I can’t wait to go to one of those in the future!

We celebrated the feast day of Our Lady of Mercy here in the Dominican! It is a very special day for the people here and they have a deep respect for Mary which is very beautiful! Nuestra Senora de Las Mercedes is actually one of the patron saints of the Dominican Republic. There was a procession in her honor through o

ur part of town with hundreds of people walking in the street with a band and lots of priests and holy people and a statue of the Virgin that was on a base carried by people in the crowd. It was a really cool thing to watch! We actually caught the procession by surprise while we were walking back from the store, so we got lucky to see this special event!

Café con Leche (the school of coffee and milk! Haha!) is a wonderful place to be! I fall more in love each day with the kids at the school and their smiles and hugs and energy! The youth here put on a concert at the school this month and it went really well! Many kids and families from the community came to sing songs and enjoy the evening together!  My English classes are going well, and I’m pretty sure most of the students in K-4^th grade know their basic English greetings. J They like to practice with me when they see me in the halls and when I’m helping with the lunch lines. We are moving on to other topics in the month ahead, but I just hope these little lessons I give them will help them in some way. I put my trust in God for the well-being of the kids at Café con Leche. These children live a very different life than most kids in the United States. They experience and live in poverty, they have responsibilities you wouldn’t think children need to have, they often see violence right outside their doorstep. But they are kids. They like to have fun and play games and laugh, and this resilience against the sometimes hostile environment they live in to just be a kid is what brings me the most peace and joy for them. Maybe by the end of my time here they won’t speak any more English than they did when I arrived, but I hope at least they know “That Amber girl, she loved me”. So, I will continue to stumble through my English lessons with my not-so-awesome Spanish and continue to give out as many hugs and high-fives and play as many games with them as I can. I think this will be what I gain from this experience. Not so much that they learned so much from me, but in everything I do with them, I do it with love and I give them love.

My progress with the language is, well, coming along I guess. My classes with Mercedes’ brother are helping and I am definitely feeling more confident with the language in speaking and in understanding. If people talk very, very, very slowly I can understand about 65% of what they say, roughly. I am trying to expand my vocabulary by “reading” newspapers and writing paragraphs each night. It takes me about 15 minutes to “read” a paragraph, though, so I’m not very well kept up on the news these days. This week will start my ultimate test of tests with my Spanish. On Tuesday, we have made a pact to stop speaking English in the house…for the next 4 months. Lord help me…! Of course if I don’t understand I can ask, in Spanish, what a word means in English. I count on so many prayers for this…really. Pray for me. Now, please! And pray for the poor people I live with who are going to have to talk like deprogramming robots for the next few weeks while I get used to it all.

Of course I certainly miss home and I miss my family and I miss my friends and I especially miss my wonderful fiancé (who is reading all of the Harry Potter books while I’m gone! He knows the key to my heart is really a magic wand!) This week was especially hard being away from home because our super sweet dog, Holly, went to doggie heaven. This experience here in the DR is really such a beautiful one because I’ve had so many times that I am so happy and filled with joy, but there are also times when I’ve had sufferings and hardships. It’s in these sufferings and hardships that I know I grow the most, so I am trying to embrace these more difficult moments and be happy when they arrive. Of course I didn’t LIKE it when my dog died, and I don’t LIKE it when the guy on the guaguita tries to charge me more money because he knows I’m a “gringa”, but I can live these harder moments for someone else. Someone who is suffering more. Someone who needs my unity in living difficult situations. Someone who I know is struggling. It makes it easier to embrace these hard moments because I don’t do it alone, I do it for and with someone else. Even if they don’t know it.

So! I’m not sure what this next month will be like! I do know that I will have my first birthday celebration in a foreign country (how exciting!)! But I hope you all don’t stop reading my blog because this one was so incredibly long! J Until next time! Hasta luego amigos! 

Viva Santo Domingo! It’s been one month since I have arrived in this beautiful place! It’s hard to remember that I am not on vacation because the Mariapolis Center and the street we live on looks right at the Caribbean Sea! I am living in a house with two other youth (gen) of the Focolare, Juanny and Inmaris, and an older lady who is also in the Focolare named Mercedes. When I first arrived, the other girls were not here, and it was me and Mercedes for a few days. She doesn’t speak much English, and I don’t speak much Spanish (yet!), but they are all sweet as pie and have taught me a lot in just the one month I have been here.

In the first few days I was Mercedes’ shadow; following her to the store to learn how to navigate the streets, cooking and cleaning in the kitchen, taking and learning how to use the public transportation, and visiting some of the sites in the area of Ciudad Colonial, which is where I am living. Ciudad Colonial (or in English, Colonial City) is the first established city in the New World and was erected by Columbus’s brother, Bartholomew, and his son, Diego. A lot of the buildings here in Ciudad Colonial date back to the 1500s, so it’s kind of cool to think that I am living in the place where the first Europeans came to the New World. Mercedes has taken me on tours of the Cathedral Primada de América (deemed the first cathedral of the New World by Pope Paul III in 1542) and Alcázar de Colón (the home of Diego Columbus).

She also showed me how to get to El Café, which is the part of town I work in.  I’ve been teaching for two weeks now, and only two of the teachers speak English, so they translated for me a lot! The staff at the school welcomed me with open arms (literally…I got a lot of hugs!) The building itself is a very nice place for the kids to come and learn. It has a gym, a cafeteria, nice bathrooms, a recess area, many classrooms, a technology room, and a beautiful view of the mountains. The children at the school are so awesome! They have amazingly big personalities! When I first started at the school, the kids thought it was really funny when I spoke English…and even funnier when I tried (and try) to speak Spanish! I am really trying to learn some classroom phrases I can use while I’m there so I don’t sound so goofy! The kids also really like to say “Hello” to me and they also like to touch my hair! Haha! I don’t know why they would want to because it always looks so terrible from the ridiculous heat! Sweat is, and will be a part of my everyday routine here in the DR…!

I’ve learned a lot of Spanish while I was here, and the language is not the only thing that I have had to get used to in this new country. There is the wonderfully exciting and exhilarating experience of taking public transportation in Santo Domingo….! Aye! Take all the rules of driving in the US and throw them out the window! Seat belts, not important. Stop signs, not important. Doors on guaguas, not required. It’s a different world! I find myself holding my breath sometimes when I ride around this town because things are just not like they are in the US. There are a lot of other things I’ve learned here too: dominoes is a way of life and building neighborly connections; in the streets it’s normal to play bachata, merengue, and salsa at any day any hour at any volume level; ask before you eat because you might have just eaten pig’s feet.

I’ve also gotten the chance to go with friends to the beach twice already! My friends here are so awesome and their families are so welcoming of me and have allowed me to become a part of their families as well! Today I will travel to the north to Santiago Rodriguez with one of the girls I live with! We will stay at her family’s house, and I’m excited to get to experience a new part of the Dominican Republic for a few days! I hope to update my blog at least once a month, so I hope you all can continue to follow me on this adventure!

Saludos de mi parte! 

The time has come to start my life long dream of living and teaching in a foreign country! I leave for the Dominican Republic tomorrow, August 6th, at 7:00am, and you can't imagine the emotions that are running through my mind and body! (Literally...I think my body is revolting against me...a sinus infection, impetigo, and a bad case of the Ds due to being nervous!) My body and I are apparently having a hard time coming to the realization that THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING! There are times when I think about how amazing and exciting this experience is going to be: the new people I will meet, the students I will teach and learn from, the new foods I'll try, the opportunity to go to the beach every weekend (oooh yaah!), learning a new language! And there are times when I think about how intimidating and scary this journey could be: not knowing the culture, people judging me because I'm not from there, being vulnerable, missing out on things in the states, LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE!

I've already said some tearful goodbyes to my family and friends in Kentucky, but I get to spend my last moments before I leave with my one and only, Tom! :) I'm so blessed to have the opportunity to go on this journey, but I'm mostly blessed with amazing friends, family, and a fiance who support and love me and my dreams and help them to come true! I can't say enough "Thank you!"s to all of you who have helped me discern the choices I made to get here, prepare me spiritually/emotionally/financially/physically, gave me helpful tips, and even taught me some basic Spanish! Yo necesito un gato! :) I wouldn't be on this journey without you, and I will continue to count on your prayers and love throughout the 6 months I will be in the Dominican Republic. I hope to update my blog while I'm there, so I hope you can follow me on my adventure of a lifetime!