Day 30 - 32: Relaxed

Mom requested a video/ photo of my living quarters so below is a video I took Saturday night of my place with an outside photo of what it looks like. The stairs to the left lead straight to the door I start with explaining in the beginning of the video.

This is the front of the building Project Manana calls the "Guest House," which is where I have been staying during my internship here. 

 

Sunday (or yesterday) morning, I went with Brian, my supervisor, to a church called New Life where the church service was similar to church in the states. The only differences from an American, Christian church is that the praise and worship was in Spanish (Spanish lyrics were posted on a projector for all to follow along,) the service was in Spanish too, but this church is considerate of those who are Spanish-illiterate or who are somewhat not the best at Spanish or understanding it by providing a headset that is tuned into a local channel where a translator translates what is being said into English without interrupting the others by not having a translator on stage repeating a sentence or two right after the preacher says something. 

After church, Brian and I went to the store to buy groceries and funny enough, one of the grocery store clerks asked me where our kids were in English. I guess he assumed we were married? Brian explained to me that him and his son had been in that particular grocery store before, but him and his wife (who is a local) had not been in there together so when the clerk saw his son was a lighter skin tone, he assumed that his son was not part American and part Dominican Republic. 

The best part of yesterday was after dinner. Brian, his family and I enjoyed the night with a bonfire and s'mores. There is nothing like a lightly toasted marshmallow on a honey-flavored graham cracker with a sweet, smooth piece of Hershey's chocolate in the middle. After eating three s'mores (hey, don't judge!) we sat, relaxed and talked about nothing important, enjoying each other's presence as the fire blazed for a couple of hours. 

 

Today, I had to go to the hospital/dr office with Brian's wife, Carolina, for his sons hand. We were there for 2 hours. No one had an appointment since it was a public hospital, so whenever you get there, you give them a piece of paper telling your name and then it is the waiting game. The nurse comes up, calls a couple of names, tells the patients which direction to go and leave. This happened for the entire time I was there! So finally, his wife's name was called and since the rooms were small, I had to sit in the waiting room being a people watcher, trying to not look like a stalker as I was the only American, white woman in the entire waiting room. Military officers help with security in these hospitals so he asked me if I had an appointment or if I needed anything. Thankfully, I was able to express that I was waiting for a friend who was being seen and he just shook his head and talked to some other waiting patients. 

Finally, lunch time at a mall food court eating pizza before leaving to go to work. We drove to Villa Gonzales to the San Pablo community where I taped pencils and pens onto crayon boxes for what I assume is for the upcoming team for about an hour and then I babysat Brian's two kids while his wife was in a meeting. 

I am back at the guest house now, hoping to enjoy my Dasani Lemonade, music and the breeze on the patio for a couple of hours. We have teams back to back after Wednesday until long after I leave so I am going to try to enjoy this while I can.

Day 29: Girly Day #2

I finally got my nails done!!! The salon was open so I finally got them done and she only charged me about $6 for everything. I was very thankful for all of it.

I went with Eury, one of the drivers on Project Manana's staff, to the grocery store to buy butter for the churros since his mom needed to make around 100 at least for the weekend. So nothing exciting happened today...again, unfortunately.

Stay tuned until tomorrow when I will be posting photos or a walk-through video of my living quarters while I am down here. I can't decide yet which I''m going to do. 

Hasta Luego! See you later!

Day 28: Chill Day

So, today was pretty uneventful... I just wanted to post something saying that I am still alive and trying to deal with boredom in the house alone.

I went with one of the drivers to get some errands done so I was happy to get out of the house for sure. We went to a hardware store and placed an order for some products Brian, my supervisor, needs.

I was supposed to get my nails done today, but when we walked to the salon, she was closed, so I will be going tomorrow to get them redone.

One cool thing that happened today was that I tried Dominican, Fried Chicken which came really close to being as good as KFC chicken.

I hope to write about something more substantial soon. I will be hanging out with some friends I met when I was down here last time Saturday night. What will be doing? I have no idea. Possibly going to the movies to watch a movie in English with Spanish subtitles, go to the Project Manana churro truck, or go get ice cream at Bon.

What do you think we should do? Comment below on ideas of what we can do in Santiago.

Day 27: Girly Day #1

I finally slept in past 10 am this morning and didn't get up until 11 am. This may seem like something small or insignificant, but I have not had any chance to sleep in because my body is used to getting up at 7:30 am when there is a team here.

About a week before I talked to Brian about coming down here, I spent some quality, girl time with one of my friends since elementary school while we got our nails done. If anyone of you know how acrylics go, you know if you take off your nails after any amount of time of having acrylics without getting them redone, your nails are crap (flimsy, not strong, useless for anything including scratching your head or anything) until your nails completely grow back out. Since I found out about coming down here, I got them redone about maybe a couple of days before I left. So, knowing it will be four weeks tomorrow, you all can imagine the necessity of me needing to get my nails done. My nails have grown out so much that I am having to force myself to not pry them off. There is space between the top of my nail and the acrylic nail so when I try to wash my hair or comb it back, hair gets stuck and it is just awful.

To give you some perspective on this, the picture on the left is what they are supposed to look like and the picture on the right is what they look like right now.

So, I am going to get them done tomorrow. When I do get them done, I will post what they look like on another post tomorrow. I decided to do something a little crazy too!!!!

Don't worry dad, I didn't get another tattoo or anything (although that is on the agenda after I get back.)

Finally got out of the house today (it had been since Sunday) and I thought I would try out the front bangs for a while... Well, I for one cannot wait to see what all hairstyles I can try with these bangs!

That's all for today. I'll see you all tomorrow for some more girly fun.

Day 26: Work around the house

Since we have had three teams straight come back to back this June, Brian asked me to count how many shoes we had left as well as water filters. Something new he asked me to count were these:

        

This device here is an audio Bible translated in Spanish and English. There are 375 of these. I counted bags of 25 which are pictured in a large duffel bag below. These are only a few of the 25,000 audio bibles someone has so graciously donated to Project Manana to give to the inmates in all of the prisons in the Dominican Republic. 

All these inmates want is a Bible and a printed Bible only lasts about 3 months before falling apart due to the amount of use it gets. What is so sad is that many Christian, American families have over 5, maybe 10, bibles on their bookshelves at home. I know I personally have maybe 3 or 4. So it is by God's grace someone is helping Project Manana spread the gospel to all of the inmates in these prisons through a device that can fit in the palm of your hand. 

Thank you God for the many small things You do that cause great things to happen all for Your glory!

Day 25: DINNER FOR THE STAFF

To show my appreciation to the Project Manana staff, I decided to make them an American dinner (since I don't know how to cook Dominican food.)

I am going to give you blow by blow how this day has gone to help you experience everything it took to make dinner.

To even get to the grocery store, the cook, whom we call Mami (or mommy,) and I took an Uber. Who would have thought Uber would be in the Dominican Republic right? So we got to the grocery and I try to find what I need to make dinner. Mind you, Mami only speaks Spanish, so it was a little challenging to talk about what I needed to buy for dinner. She told me she has to help me make dinner, which I assume is only because she wants to make sure I cook it all correctly and because the cookware (stove, etc.) is very different from the states.

I found what I needed: boneless, chicken breasts, green beans, corn (since I couldn't find baked beans) and macaroni and cheese because you can't have an American dinner without macaroni and cheese. Mami asked if I wanted to make a salad and I said sure why not. I didn't know if she meant like a side salad sort of thing or what, but I wasn't going to eat it so that wasn't a problem.

We check out and have to take a taxi home since we didn't drive over here, which I paid for.

We didn't start cooking until around 6:30 pm so that it could be done by 8.

 So the Dominican salad was prepared by dicing up two heads of lettuce and one radish as a cucumber (not pictured) and tomatoes were sliced as a side dish for the salad.

Since I am really great at making any type of pasta, I made the macaroni and cheese. I decided to saute whole, green beans before putting together the buttered corn in a small, white bowl.

The chicken was the hardest part for me (which also took the longest.) We cut the chicken breasts into fillets and added a few, ground cloves of garlic with two Dominican, chicken bouillon cubes before frying it all in a large skillet with some flavored oil (I'm not exactly sure what she added.)

Above is the pictured smorgasbord of food that Mami and I cooked for the team. Some were not able to make it, but I was happy to receive high praises that it was good nonetheless from those who did.

I thought you might want to see what kind of chef I am in the kitchen when I put my mind to it. $70 dollars and 7 full stomachs later, I was happy to have done this small gesture of my appreciation for all that they have done these past three weeks.

Please pray for us while we are down here. My supervisor, Brian, has been dealing with a cold for the past three weeks and is slowly getting better. We will not have any breaks when the next team comes in on July 5th until the end of July, so please pray he makes a swift recovery this week before July 5th. Thank you for your prayers and love!

Day 18 - 24: Calvary Community Church

(It seems as though this is going to be a weekly thing rather than daily like I had hoped.)

I have been able to work with a team of high school students from Calvary Community Church based out of California this week. These kids took time out of their summer to come to a country that they had never gone to in order to have "open hands" and be flexible to what the staff had planned for them to do this week.

 

This team's leader, Hugo (pictured to the right,) did a splendid job taking care of this team of 18 students and 4 adults as they hosted 3 Vacation Bible School days, worked on removing a pile of dirt that was in the way of the construction team who is steadily building the upcoming Pre-school/ Elementary building, and even distributed more shoes and water filters like the team did two weeks ago.

 

These high school students used their mission trip motto of "open hands"  very literally this week as they opened their arms to hold kids of varying ages, most of which who were thankful for the time spent talking with them (for those who could speak Spanish) or just simply smiling and holding their hand. The team went out of their way to have an actual Americans vs. Dominicans baseball game with the local kids who completely smoked the American teens to the ground.

No matter where I travel on this island, I am always awe-struck with the magnificence of its beauty, No matter if it is the bird's-eye view of Santiago or the country side, it is always lovely to see what God has created. 

I want to get real with you for a second to show how I am human and that I make mistakes. While dealing with a summer cold this week, I had a relapse of realizing my reasoning as to why I am here. Wishing I was home in my bed with the many comforts I am used to, I was quickly put in my place by some family members that I am down here for a reason: to serve alongside Brian and the Project Manana team spreading the gospel, whether it be with holding a child in an impoverished community, putting a pair of shoes that grow on a kid who has only a very worn pair of sandals on his feet, or if it is smiling and waving at locals as we drive through the city. 

It is hard to keep my perspective of why I here in the forefront of my mind as I miss people from home. 

I get pictures like these and I realize it is a little less than a month before I am on a plane back home, back to my life. I need prayers to realize that I need to be in the moment and spend time with the teams here. Not many can say they have been to the Dominican Republic, let alone twice. Please pray that I can keep my mind and heart here as I finish out my internship here. I am happy to be spending time here and making new friends that I hope to keep for years to come. 

I wanted to share this little gem with you all. This is a true Dominican Church service song sung by one of the locals in the San Pablo Community this morning. Quality is not the best, but I hope you see that no matter what language someone is singing or speaking, it is all to the same God in Heaven who understands all languages who are singing to him. 

Unfortunately, I did not get a video recording of two of this week's team members singing a song this morning that the locals also knew. It was a very humbling experience to hear and see both Americans and Dominicans sing the same song. It literally brought a smile to my face to see everyone in the church singing together. It may be something that you have to see or hear before you realize how magnificent it is. 

I spent the day yesterday at the beach and thought I would share this view with everyone. The Caribbean is a very beautiful place. This is Sosua Beach on the northern shores of the island. 

I will have the next few days off, so I hope to post about my week and the little things I do around here during my free time. Please feel free to comment or message me on Facebook about my trip.