Rio San Juan and Last Week!

Hi!

Us girls were fortunate to hitch a ride with the study abroad students and Christine to visit the beautiful city of Rio San Juan! Although we squished 13 people in a 7 passenger van for an hour trip, it was totally worth it! It was such a relaxing day, and we had a wonderful time making memories with the study abroad students!

We were able to take a little small motorized boat through this beautiful little area filled with trees and egrets. It was amazing to see all the trees crazy roots, hear the birds, and see little fish!

We then took the boat on the open ocean, it was beautiful! We even drove into a cave!

The rock that resembled a type of skull. Possibly a buffalo or monkey!

After driving through some caves and spending time at a little beach, we headed to a bigger beach where we spent the rest of our day. We bought drinks that were served in pineapples and coconuts and just hung out on the beach. I had many great conversations with the study abroad students and loved having that time to learn more about their life! 

That night, we had a surprise birthday party for Taylor because she was leaving the following day along with Susie and her birthday was July 31st. She was so surprised and it was precious because her sweet parents planned it all by themselves! We had a little dance party in their house and loved the dessert that Luisa made for all of us! 

The next day was very difficult. We had to say goodbye to Susie and Taylor as they started their journey back to The States.We decided to get up early and see the sun rise at the vista that overlooks the beach that we made many memories at! 

Here is a view from the vista

The sun eventually peaked through behind the clouds!

Alicen, Taylor, and I along with one of the study abroad students, Ryan, were the ones who ventured up to this place at 5:45AM. We had quite an interesting experience. We kind of thought the sun wasn't ever going to come out which was going to be frustrating since we all got up so early! The sun did come out but only for a few minutes. Then, we could see rain headed toward us. We eventually could even hear it before it had reached us. We were seriously getting chased by rain. We started heading down, but the rain caught us. We got soaked, but that makes the memory even better!  Watching Taylor and Susie say their goodbyes was emotional because I knew that in just a week that would be me. After they left, Alicen and I spent a good bit of the day just spending time with the community, especially their host families, and comforting them during this sad time! 

Okay, now on to my last week! I am just going to put some of the highlights and lots of pictures!

I spent a lot of time at Gonzale and Luisa's(Taylor's host parents) house after she left. They were missing her greatly and I enjoyed spending time with them! They have this absolutely precious litter of puppies in their backyard and I wanted to play with them one day. So I headed back there and the mom dog is freaking out! She is barking and trying to get me to do something. She kind of successfully brings me to this one spot of the yard where I hear puppies whimpering. I lift up this little piece of wood and there are two puppies in a whole probably like a foot deep and 6 inches filled with water and mud. The mom would try to put her head in the whole to grab the puppies out, but she couldn't. After reaching my hand and pulling the dogs out I felt like such a hero! It was weird, I have never felt like I communicated with a dog more than that day! 

This is one of the pups even after I had rinsed them off in a bucket! So miserable! 

But sweet mom and siblings were trying to clean the wet ones up!

SO adorable and clean!

One of the little cuties another day when it wasn't all wet!

One of my other favorite memories from my last week was going to the beach for a girl in the community's birthday. Maite turned 10 and so much of the community came to the beach to celebrate with her. We literally stayed all day and I loved every minute of it. Usually when I went to the beach it was just about 6-7 of us, but this day there ended up being at least like 30 or more! Some of us traveled there in the back of a pick-up. I think there was about 13 of us, plus tables, chairs, and food. It was so great! I spent so much time with some of the younger boys playing keep away and volleyball in the river that feeds into the ocean. The keep away ended up kind of being lets just tackle whoever has the ball. Although there were like 10 guys playing and I was the only girl, I hung in there and tackled my fair share of boys!  We also jumped off the bridge and just made so many great memories! Well, the memory making continued when it started to pour rain when we needed to be leaving! So needless to say, we had a crowded, wet, cold and pretty uncomfortable journey back to La Esquina! 

Another thing that I loved to watch is the boys found some boxing gloves and just started having these little boxing matches. They definitely weren't serious at all, but it was so funny! 

Some friendly boxing with all the other boys cheering them on!

This time they had the head gear!

These boys are probably both like 7, they were pretty adorable. This picture seems much more serious that it actually was!

One of my favorite things that happened was this:

The sweet man that I am hugging is Papa Miguel and he is seriously the most adorable man ever. . He wore a Cardinal's hat everyday and always talked about how they were his favorite team. Every time I wore my T-shirt he would give me a big hug and we'd talk about The Cardinal's for a bit! He is hugging me in this picture because I gave him the T-shirt that I had brought as a gift for him to have!

Here is him in the shirt I just gave him and me in the hat he wore around everyday! I absolutely love this picture and this moment!

Another wonderful memory was the day before I left: ONE LAST MANGO HUNT!

Here is Jeremia climbing in the tree getting mangoes for us!

Alicen and I decided to actually be adventurous and climb up in the mango tree with the boys! We seriously spent over and hour hanging out in the tree eating mangoes and talking. For sure one of my favorite memories!

Then the boys had to show off their log rolling skills. We'll just say I didn't get the timing down quite right when taking the picture...

MORE:

Another litter of puppies!! They had just opened their eyes when I left and were about 2-3 weeks old!

I could've seriously held those sweet babies all day!

Maite "sledding" down the hill on a huge plantain leaf, so inventive!

Bobby joined in too!

Papa Lion teaching me how to shoot his pellet gun. He really got a kick out of it, and I think he thought it was my first time to shoot a gun!

My Last Day:

So, we sort of made getting up to watch the sun rise a thing to do when someone was heading back to the U.S. This particular time the group that went was Alicen, Ryan, and I. But, we also had some special guests as well. Three of the kids that I got the closest too decided to get up early for me so that I could get to share this memory with them on my last day. Jeremia had asked me if I would go to his house to wake him up so I left my house at 5:30AM. While I was headed toward Jere's house, I saw someone walking toward me and after being scared of who it was for a second I realized it was Jere. He was so proud of himself for waking up to his alarm and not having to make me wake him up! He and I then headed up to the twins house to wake them up. After a bit, they were up. Next, Alicen. This was difficult, we went old school and threw rocks at her window and whispered her name. It was so funny, but we had to try not to laugh too loud to wake everyone up or make the dogs go crazy. After picking up Ryan, we headed up to the vista! After a bit, we were curious if the sun was going to rise through the clouds, but it eventually did! 

Such a wonderful place!

The Three Amigos: Oniel, Jeremia, and Aniel

God is good!

Love these boys so much. We truly became the best of friends!

Alicen and I with our boys!

The little parade some of the kids threw me before I left!

This summer was such a wonderful experience, and I cannot thank The Lord enough for placing this opportunity in front of me! I am planning on sharing and expanding on the lessons he taught me and the impact this community had on my life in a later blog. I am missing this place so much right now, but I have full confidence in The Lord and His plan. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers throughout this summer. Please continue praying for this wonderful community and for me!

Birthdays, Gardening, Baseball and Much More!

Hola! I am incredibly sorry that it has been nearly a month since I have updated my blog. I am planning on just highlighting certain events that took place over my last few weeks in the country. I decided it might be a little lengthy, so I am going to split it up into two blogs. So, right now I am back in the United States and have been since this past Thursday night, August 1st. The adjustment has been difficult, but I am starting to get used to being back in the good ol' USA. After I am finished with this blog, I plan to write an overview of the summer and share how this experience affected me and the way The Lord used it to mold and shape me. But for this particular blog I am just going to share how I spent my last few weeks. I mentioned in a blog earlier how for July 4th we had wanted to teach the community how to dance the 2-Step but it didn't work out. Well, we finally had a night where we were able to teach them how to! It was fun to have country music blaring and see all the guys struggle but eventually catch on. It was good for them to get a chance to feel how we felt when being taught how to dance meringue or bachata. They were real patient when learning and could tell that us girls really enjoyed sharing a taste of our culture with them! On the afternoon of July 13th, Christine and her study abroad students arrived in our community after spending three weeks in Jarabacoa. We spent most of the day showing them around and getting them accustomed to their new home for the next few weeks. It was great getting to know them and sharing experiences that we had so far in the community. There were six of them, five girls and one boy. Four of them were from the University of Michigan, one from the University of Chicago, and one from Xavier. We were able to really welcome them into the community with a huge birthday party on that Sunday night for a man in the community named Chepe. Birthday parties are a pretty big deal here and a lot of the community comes out to celebrate. A lot of planning goes into it and it lasts FOREVER. They serve soup at the party, but not until about 11:00PM. The soup they serve is The Dominican Republic's national dish called sancocho. It is basically a stew of tubers such as yucca, potatoes, carrots and others as well as pieces of meat usually pork or chicken. Then the stew is poured over a bed of rice and is absolutely delicious! I figured people wouldn't really eat a lot since it was so late but nearly everyone takes and finishes the huge bowl they are served.  And then of course there is cake that is needed to be served, too. They don't want to serve the cake too early because they know that most everyone will leave after the cake is served. So, they don't serve it until about 12:30-1:00AM. Crazy, I know! 

Here is Chepe's cake. Yes, it was 6 feet long!

The birthday parties make for a crazy and late night, but it is fun to see a big part of the community together dancing and having a wonderful time. The day of this birthday party happened to be the same day as Mama Purita's birthday, but her and Papa Lion aren't exactly the dancing or partying type so they didn't make it to the party. But I really enjoyed spending the day with her and hanging out with the family that came in to celebrate her birthday. 

This is Mama Purita and I before I headed to the birthday party. The precious thing is that she wasn't dressed up to go anywhere. She just wanted to look and feel nice on her birthday. She even had heels on, I loved it!

The next week was very productive! We headed to a hardware store to buy the small amount of supplies that we needed and actually started constructing our first keyhole garden. We needed to buy chicken wire and rebar and we were thrilled that it wasn't very expensive! 

The chicken wire we bought was 5 feet tall so this is Alicen cutting it in half so that the height of our garden would only be 2.5 feet.

Alicen and I wrapping the chicken wire around the rebar for our framework of the garden.

Taylor and Susie working hard as well!

Me collecting rocks to be placed on the bottom of the barrier for added support.

We placed plastic bottles that we had collected all over the community in between two layers of chicken wire to serve as a barrier for our keyhole garden. We liked the idea of using plastic bottles and chicken wire because it was less expensive than cement or bricks and also is a better learning tool. Now, the children will learn that plastic serves as a good barrier because it won't decompose like the other things we are putting in the middle of the garden. We are hoping they will learn to not throw their bottles on the side of the road anymore because they will remain there for forever!

Here is a photo which depicts the whole garden much better. We were only able to fill the barrier halfway full of plastic bottles and didn't put the other materials in yet. The circle in the middles serves as a "trashcan" wear the kids can continue to put compostable items such as paper and food scraps in once the garden is completed.

Here is what we accomplished on that day: Four girl aggies creating the framework for a keyhole garden. Gig 'em!

Also this week Susie and I headed to a field that they are starting to make into an actual baseball field to play baseball. We weren't aware that it was going to be such a big deal, but probably about 25-30 teenage boys and young men came to join in on the fun! Other times that I have mentioned playing baseball it was on a much smaller scale. First of all, it was usually with boys that were from 12-15 whereas this time the youngest were 15 and the oldest were probably in their mid 30's-40's. Also, I usually played in the street or driveway with at most 8 or 9 kiddos. Again, we used a tennis ball or some sort of homemade ball created with many pairs of socks. This time, we used actual softballs. Needless to say, Susie and I functioned as designated hitters because they didn't want us to get hurt trying to play in the field. It was so much fun to experience such a large scale pick-up game of baseball!

Yeury batting while others are waiting to bat. Also, notice how that one guy even hardcore dressed up in full uniform for the occasion!

So, Susie and I kind of dropped the ball on pictures of this game. But here is a little bit of a view of the game!

It kept raining off and on so here is the shelter we'd all run to when it started to rain! 

It was so much fun to see a lot of guys in the community actually be able to play the game in its full effect. I also enjoyed getting on base and even scoring a run! After this game of baseball, I ended up going to a pasture to play with some of the younger boys who were left out during this game for the older guys and even men. It was raining for a lot of the time we were playing and it was funny for the guys to realize that didn't bother me. I don't think girls here in the DR ever play sports and if they did, they definitely wouldn't play in the rain. I just kept telling them, you guys are out here and are playing so therefore I can too! When we play in the pasture, the kids usually put giant leaves down as the bases. So, there was one time that I was running super fast to try to get to first and it was going to be a close play. I wish I could say that I meant to slide into first, but I didn't and all the kids knew that. They sure got a kick out of me taking a fall and becoming all muddy! 

Later on in the week, my mom and I made peanut butter. They grow peanuts in our community, and I absolutely love eating the ones my mom roasted! But this one particular day, I asked my mom if we could try to make peanut butter. She of course agreed although neither of us knew what we were doing. We probably should have discussed a game plan before we both just started doing what we figured you are supposed to do when making peanut butter because we had much different plans of action. I wanted to take my mom's mortar and pestle and just smash the peanuts until they became smooth. If they needed a little moisture I was just going to add a little oil. Well, my mom on the other hand thought that we were going to cook the mixture. So after peeling the papery shell off, I took some and placed them in the mortar and started smashing. She decided to take peanuts and water and mix them in the blender. After, she placed them on the stove and brought it to a boil. Needless to say, our peanut butter didn't exactly turn out like I was expecting it to but it was a fun time spent with my mom! The peanut butter had good flavor, but it just retained too much water. I still ate it, but decided to put a layer of regular peanut butter on my crackers first and then top it with our creation! I think this is long enough for now and I will add the last week on my next blog!

Surviving Chantal/Weekend Adventure to Jarabacoa!

So, as the title of this blog says, we survived the tropical storm, Chantal! The storm was predicted to head straight toward The Dominican Republic, but because our God is gracious and all-powerful, it passed on by! We did get a lot of rain but nothing out of the ordinary. I just wanted to update everyone who was worried and also show my gratitude to all who prayed for our safety. GOD IS GOOD!

Anyway, I mentioned in my last blog about our journey to Jarabacoa and now I am going to elaborate! Jarabacoa is a city in the mountains in the middle of the DR(about 4 hours from our community) where Christine, our professor, is living with study abroad students right now. Christine enjoys putting a lot on her plate so this study abroad program is one of the many things she has going on this summer. She did her undergrad at Indiana University and now runs a study abroad program for Big 10 schools each summer in the DR. The program is research based and the students spend 3 weeks in the city life of Jarabacoa and then move to the rural life of our community for another 3 weeks. The students are coming into our community this Saturday, and we are all real excited! Okay, now on to explaining what we did in Jarabacoa! I first need to start with how we got there, though. Hold on one second, I need to provide a quick background story. So, the reason Christine is connected with this community is because she did her dissertation research for anthropology here and then ended up living here for another 10 years. While she was here, she "adopted" three kids who are now in there  late teens and 20's. Anyway, her adopted son, Richard, came to Jarabacoa with us to help us navigate! To get there, we had to take public transportation which involves many short trips to cities in 15-passenger vans. They don't really seem to follow the 15-passenger rule too well though. 

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Here is an example of 24 people crammed into one "guagua," which is the term they use here for any type of car!

So, we needed to take four different guaguas to get to Jarabacoa and on these guaguas, they just randomly shout out an amount of money that you then proceed to pass up to the driver! On the second leg, we decided to just hitch a ride with a random guy in a truck who was happening to go to the next city where we would need to hop on the next guagua. Yes, we fit 7 people in a small 4-door truck with all of our luggage for the weekend. Yes, the trip there was quite a squished adventure, but a great one! Christine is staying in an apartment in Jarabacoa so when we got there that is where we went. It was a great reunion because it had been awhile since we all had seen her! We were also very excited that in that apartment was a kitchen! As much as we have all enjoyed being waited on hand and foot, we wanted to do some cooking! We had thought of some meals that we missed and wanted to make! Before it was dinner time, the study abroad students came by so that we could meet them! I think I forgot to mention in my last post that this past week us 4 girls made the sweet potato dulce(sweet in Spanish) with Mama Purita! I also don't know if I have explained what that is yet either. So basically it is Thanksgiving in a bowl. It has sweet potatoes, coconut, milk, brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon that just eventually becomes a big ol' mash...SO GOOD! Anyway, my purpose of explaining that is that my mom sent me with a tupperware bowl of the dulce to enjoy while we were in Jarabacoa! So right before the study abroad students came by, we had started enjoying some! When the students came, we decided to give them a little taste of our community, they all loved it! It was great to meet all of them and we are ready for the six of them to come hang out with us here in La Esquina! After they left, we headed to the store to buy groceries for the meals we wanted to make! For dinner Friday night we had pancakes(with peanut butter and honey of course!) eggs, and sausage. We were planning on making homemade salsa right when we got there but then discovered that there would be a market that sold fresh vegetables in the morning so we decided to wait. But since we had really missed spicy foods, we decided to buy a little Tostino's while we were at the store anyway! Dinner was great and we just spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Christine! Speaking of Christine, she lives in a one bedroom apartment in Jarabacoa and we decided to all "sleep" on the rock-hard floor, which didn't really work at all. Oh well, it was okay! The next morning we headed to the market to buy all the veggies we needed to make salsa. We had brought a few mangoes with us to give the salsa a little "Dominican" twist! The sad part was they didn't have fresh jalapenos, so we had to use pickled but we were still able to choke it down. For lunch we went over to where Christine's godchildren live and spent time with them and their family! The girls are so precious, but a lot to handle! 

Here is the older daughter, Channel, who is quite the model!

This is Chanthal making Alicen into a beautiful princess!

We spent the remainder of the afternoon just hanging out with them until we headed back to Christine's to make quesadillas to enjoy with our homemade salsa! After dinner, we went dancing!

Here is us 4 before we headed out!
(Taylor, me, Susie, and Alicen)

We had to have a crazy picture of course! Love these girls!

We decided that after not sleeping too well at Christine's we should probably stay at the house with her compadres which actually had a bed. We did squish all four of us sideways in a full size bed, but we slept much better! Sunday morning we headed back to our community. We definitely had more squished adventures in guagua's and trucks along with rain on the way back! This time, we fit 8 people in a small 4-door truck. It was so great! 

So, when we were in Jarabacoa, Susie decided to buy some hair dye so the following pictures are us dying her hair! Apparently it's a thing she does to go red in late summer to fall. It was a fun experience!

Here is Susie before!

During: her hair could basically just stand up like that because of all of the dye!

Us waiting to rinse it out!

Rinsing it out!
We bleed maroon...WHOOP!

The finished product!

I mentioned in a previous blog about our Fourth of July Adventure in Cabrera with pizza and ice cream. Here is a picture of that night:

This is us four at the Pizzeria with Gabriel creepin' in the background!

I also mentioned in my last post about us starting to collect items for our keyhole garden. It has been going great so far. We have been passing out plastic bags to houses, explaining the garden, so that they can start saving things that we can use! It has been successful and the community is loving it. I am kind of having technical issues when posting these pictures so sorry if they seem to be in odd places!

The huge cardboard box that the owner of the Colmado(convenience store) gave to us!



Alicen and Trini with things we have collected!

Here is the bags we have been handing out:

 This is my little friend Bobby and I watching the boys play baseball, gotta love the big cardboard box proudly displayed in the back!

These next two pictures are part of the buildings that make up La Esquina(The Corner) and where the community got its name from!

Alicen and I in front of the Colmado.

These are other buildings that make up the corner. We are really excited about the building on the left because some of our friends just bought it to have a new place for their motorcycle shop and feed store. We love the new location!

This is my novio(boyfriend) Ericson. Yes, his grandparents actually refer to me as his girlfriend. He is Taylor's Dominican nephew and I absolutely love him! Once again, please notice the plastic bag for collecting items in the back!

I know this blog has been really random and hasn't flowed that well so sorry! There was a lot that I wanted to share and I didn't really know the best order to put it in! Alicen, Taylor, and I have been spending a lot of time translating curriculum for the garden and creating a blueprint for how the garden will be set up. We are hoping that the beginning of this next week we will actually be able to head up to the school and start preparing the area for the garden and then once we have enough collected items we will start planting! We cannot describe our excitement for all that God has in store these next few weeks. Thanks again for all the prayers!