life in the dominican republic

Life in the Dominican Republic is very different than life in the states in many ways. One of the big things that distinguishes the two is that, in the DR, it seems as though nothing comes easily. Some days it feels like everything is a fight. If there is a task you need to accomplish, inevitably twelve things will go wrong before it is accomplished. For the most part, I think that I have grown accustomed to this and take it in stride, but some days, frustration takes over and I start to wish for life in the states. Last week I struggled a little with homesickness and with accepting and adjusting to my new life here in the DR. The new normal.

I want to share a couple examples to help you understand what I mean. Last Monday, I walked a mile (literally) in the 90 degree heat (literally) to get to the copy place so that I could print out and copy my assessment that I needed for the next day. When I got there, I found out that they had an old version of microsoft office and that I couldn't open my documents on any of their computers. I didn't have time to walk all the way back home to get to my computer to save it differently and walk back to the copy place before they closed. So, instead, I walked home and had to hand-write the assessments. And then the next day, I took a cab to the copy place on my way home from work, with my zip drive containing the newly-saved documents, printed them out, had them copied, and transferred all of the assessments I did that day onto the copied assessments. Overall, at least a few hours of extra work and endless frustration. Not the type of situation I ever had to deal with teaching in the states.

Another example: Our oven. Last week, Katie spent about an hour preparing her famous meatloaf, put it in the oven and nothing happened. The pilot light was out. I had been taught how to light the pilot light at Guille and Shelley's, but this oven is different. So after trying to figure it out ourselves for a while, we skyped with her dad as he talked us through it. Meanwhile, gas had been leaking into the apartment. So we waited for it to air out and even with him talking us through it, the pilot light wouldn't light, but we were able to light the burner (?) I don't fully understand what we did. (Oh yeah, and there is no thermometer on the oven so there is a random meat thermometer that sits on one of the racks in the oven.) Now it was already at least 95 degrees in our apartment and her dad tells us that we really have to watch the burner because if it goes out, gas will leak into the apartment. My plan was to get as far away from that oven as possible, not to babysit it, opening the door every few minutes to check on it for and hour and a half. The following scene is what happened next:
Buzzer sounds.
I come out of my bedroom to see Katie running around in circles looking confused.
katie - did you hear that buzzer?
me - yes
katie - do you think it's the carbon monoxide alarm?
me- um... i don't think those exist here
buzzer sounds again
me- i think it the intercom
katie picks up phone - hola? no one was there
door bell rings
katie picks up phone again, no one is there again
door bell rings again and we go to the window to see who is downstairs
we see the lady outside that lives across the courtyard
who is upstairs? - she asks us (in spanish)
yo y carrie(me and carrie) - katie says even more confused
now the lady looks confused as well
katie's cell phone rings and it's a man from india trying to sell her insurance
katie- um, i'm in the dominican republic, you shouldn't be calling me
katie hangs up
door bell rings again
it sounds like a doorbell, maybe we should open the door (hmmm, i don't know why it took so long for that to occur to us)
We open the door to see the two little twins with glasses that live across the court yard holding two bowls of dominican food for us from their mom
:)

Me and Katie like to think that between the two of us we almost make up one whole Dominican, because she speaks the language and I know the country and the culture. But the truth is that most of the time we are very confused and lost. Luckily there are a lot of people that God has put in our lives who have taken it upon themselves to laugh with us and help us (and make us food).
And that is one of the aspects of life in the dominican republic that I love. I am surrounded by dominican people who have so much life and so much love and who truly care about me. People who want to help me and look out for me and make sure that I am ok. And I am so thankful for them.

In my next post, I will be writing about my first dominican hair cut and my first authentic dominican trip to the beach, and throughout those stories, both of these aspects of life here will come up again and again: everything going wrong and wonderful people looking out for me.