La Semana Pasada

Buckle in because this is a long one! It seems like it’s been a long time since we’ve given you an update. First, language school has been going great but man, the more we know the further behind we feel. It’s amazing how what started as a simple concept like conjugating a verb to express a tense becomes extremely complicated because it turns out that there are 14 different tenses! Crazy. Language is truly like an onion. I’m confident that we have learned a lot but the learning has helped expose our many gaps. And, it’s tempting to allow those deficiencies to claim dominance over what we do know when in reality, what we know must have control otherwise, we’ll never fill in the gaps. Maybe there’s a parable hidden in there…

We had a chance to run out to Barahona quickly last weekend (for about 20 hours). It was fantastic! The area is beautiful. It’s so near to the water but backed by the sleeping dragon of a mountain range. And man is it green! Sounds like the sun is quite a bit more intense but that the humidity tends to be a bit less because it rains far less often. While we were there, we went to a basketball game with our Dominican family (the brothers and sisters that we live with) and I was once again reminded of how passionate the people here are about their sports. To get into the arena, heavily armed security guards who were part of the detachment that was patrolling the stands patted us down. In addition to the guards, the entire court was fenced in by cyclone fencing to prevent people from the stands coming down onto the court (which turned out to be only partially effective.) The game was intense (and really great basketball) but the refs blatantly cheated. It’s a long story but in the end, they canceled the game with 10 seconds remaining, which caused the tension in the stadium to boil over. A small bit of fighting erupted but it was quickly quelled and we managed to avoid all of it. Pretty exciting though!

The rest of our time in Barahona involved going to a wonderful church and enjoying a great meal with our family. Then, our time was up because we had to get back for class the next day so we loaded up onto the bus and headed back to Santo Domingo. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the city but the tease of it all really whetted our excitement to get there for good.

We’ve started to take some pictures (though admittedly they are not very good) and hopefully in the next week we will post a slideshow of some of the things that we’ve captured with the camera.

You know, everything we do is an adventure. We can’t seem to do anything without taking a deep breath and plunging in. The great thing is that we have a tangible example of that every morning when we take a shower. There’s really only one method for getting in – 1. Take a deep breath (if you don’t you’re in trouble because it’s tough to breathe once the water hits your back!) 2. Duck in and under the water. Essentially, we do the same thing every time we attempt anything – catching a car, going to the supermarket, asking what time it is, ordering food, walking down the street, changing money, asking directions, etc – 1. Take a deep breath. 2. Head into situation. We’re really good when what we calculate actually happens. The trouble starts when we expect a fastball and get a curve instead. Turns out though, nothing ever goes the way we calculate. So, we smile a lot, and often finish a situation knowing that we didn’t access everything we could have and leave hoping that we didn’t offend anyone in the process. It’s a bit overwhelming sometimes but we have learned to reinterpret the Psalmist to say, “The stress may go on all day, but joy comes with the morning.”

We had a hilarious experience today in the public car that we take home from school. Basically, it’s a taxi that functions as a bus because it only runs along a specific route but will let you out anywhere along the route. Here in Santo Domingo, the cars seem to be the most popular form of public transportation. They really are great because there are seemingly thousands of them and you can pick them up anywhere and be dropped off anywhere so long as you are on the route. Anyway, they’re all small 5 seater cars but they aren’t full until there’s 3 across the front and 4 across the back. When we got in today we made numbers 3 and 4 in the back. So, the deal is that everyone always scoots over to accommodate the extra passengers and one of the 2 middle people sits forward on the edge of the seat to allow enough room for everyone to get in. Are you with me on what this looks like? Four people on the seat but 3 are sitting back with their hips at the back of the seat and one of the middlers with their hips on the front edge. Well today, the two women who were already in the car did nothing to accommodate Kel and I and they ended up lounging – seriously lounging, legs apart, arm across the back of the seat, space between the woman and her door. Lounging. So Kel ended up being the one sitting forward on the front edge but there wasn’t actually an edge for her forcing her to do a wall sit for most of the ride while my body folded into a space about half the size of what should be physically possible. And, as we’re driving, Kel starts laughing about how ridiculous the whole thing is (and because of how compact I was able to make myself) and then couldn’t stop laughing. It was one of those moments where the more you try to stop, the harder you laugh. Like the Seinfeld episode when Jerry puts the Pez dispenser on Elaine’s leg. Anyway, the extremely comfortable lounging women actually asked each other if Kelly was crazy rather than scooting over. Upon getting out of the car, I nearly fell down because my leg was so sound asleep. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen the Mr. Bean episode where he goes to the dentist and ends up with Novocain in his leg, but that is exactly what I felt like. Anyway, I wish you all could have been there because it was so funny. And, we learned something new because as soon as we got home, we asked our family how to say, “Could you please scoot over to make room for me?”

We went shopping the other day to try to buy some clothes for work and were very unsuccessful, but had some good laughs along the way because it was like being in U-Village or Alderwood or something. Many of the stores were Dominican stores but they all had American clothes – Abercrombie, Aeropostale, American Eagle, Hollisters, Levi’s – mixed in with the rest of the clothes. It was hilarious. The funniest part of it though was that the cheapest shirt we found for Kelly was authentic Patagonia (true Patagucci). We didn’t buy it but it sure cracked us up.

The sights, sounds and smells here are so different. Santo Domingo has the typical big city smell combined with lots of exhaust and the occasional stench of roadside garbage that has succumbed to the heat and humidity. I noticed too that Barahona had a different smell. It was a smoky, slightly sweet and slightly sickly – not at all offensive, just different than the smell that I’m accustomed to. And it is loud all the time. Construction doesn’t stop for day or night. Whenever people can work, they work. Plus, the cars are loud with their horns and brakes. And there are so many people. All of the collective noise of conversation and life from 3 million people certainly adds up!

Ok, it’s time for me to get to my homework. Kelly and I did want to let you know though that we have been praying for all of you, often by name, each night. We love and miss you dearly and are so thankful to have you in our lives and on our team. To paraphrase Paul, “we always remember all of you in all of our prayers…”

Love,
M&K