Glimpse into our Life - A Drive Around Santiago

At lunch time on Thursday, Eddy and I had to go into downtown Santiago to run some errands for the school.  I decided to video parts of our drive so that I could show you around the city a little bit.

Since most of this video was taken around 12:30 on a Thursday, you unfortunately won't see the crazy traffic that happens in the late afternoons.  (We intentionally avoid going into the city at that time of day.  But if we ever do, I will make sure to record that for you as well.)

You will, however, see a lot of cultural things as we drive through the city, such as people carrying umbrellas to shade them from the sun, motorcycles all around ignoring every single traffic law,  women carrying things on their heads, men pushing carts full of things to sell, the monument, people hanging out of the doors of moving buses, people selling water bottles at intersections, etc.

The last minute of the video shows us arriving in our neighborhood at the end of the day.  After we turn the corner, you will see a white building in front of us.  That is where we live.  Our apartment is the second floor of that building.  The video ends with us turning into our drive way. 

So, I invite you to take a five minute drive with us around Santiago.  I even added a Spanish praise and worship song for you to listen to while you watch.



A Drive Around Santiago from Carrie Ramos on Vimeo.

Glimpse into Our Life - School Video

This is a video that Joy made for us about a year ago for our last trip to the states.  In case you didn't get to see it or would like to see it again, I thought it would be a good idea to post it here.  Since the school has been a major part of our lives for the last several years, this video definitely shows a "glimpse into our life".

Bienvenidos a Caminito de Jesús from Joy Gort on Vimeo.

Glimpse into Our Lives - Lunch

We had lunch with some of our favorite people yesterday.  Eladia and her two gradchildren, Adriana and Joseph.  Eladia is an amazing cook and hostess.  We had a very typical Dominican lunch.  Rice with beans, concon, chicken, salad with tomatos and avocados, arepitas de yuca, and homemade key limeade.  We love going to Eladia's house for lunch.

Glimpse into our life this morning

This morning, when we were leaving our house, there were two men cutting down a tree...

in the middle of the road....

with a machete.

Completely normal thing in the DR.

See the machete?

Glimpse into our life - outreach

About a year ago, Eddy and I needed to start searching for a new church to attend.  After visiting a few different churches we started regularly attending ICC (International Christian Church).  We were welcomed with open arms into their church family and have found a home there.  We have gotten involved in some of the church's ministries over the last several months.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Eddy serves on the praise team.  The church is focused on building relationships with other churches and serving the community.  The church is sometimes asked to help with a "campaña".  Campañas are very common in the DR and are used as an outreach.  Basically you set up in the street in the community near the church hosting the campaña and have a worship service or a concert right out in the street with the purpose of evangelism.  Sometimes campaña are just for one night, sometimes they are for several nights.  

When helping with one of these campañas, it is always a little bit of an adventure.  You are out in the street at night in a barrio.  Things go wrong and changes need to be made.  The important thing is to be flexible, go with the flow, enjoy yourself and give all the glory to God, because God does find a way to move and work in that space.

I put a few pictures below of these kinds of campañas.  In the one you will see that there was no stage, so they just set up in the back of the pickup.  In the other, it started raining in the middle of worship so we got rained on for a little while and then when it picked up, we moved into the church.  None of those hiccups hindered God and what He meant to do.

Monte Cristi

Monte Cristi

setting up in Pekin

This is about when it started raining.

Glimpse into our life - Laundry

Here in the Dominican Republic, doing laundry requires a delicate balance of several factors over which I have little to no control.

In order to wash clothes, I need electricity and running water.  Since we do not have a dryer, in order to dry the clothes, it needs to not be raining and the clothes need to be on the line well before 6 pm.  (Eddy put clotheslines up in our "backyard" and also on our porch.)

So there we go; laundry needs to be done in the morning or early afternoon when there is running water, electricity, and it's not raining. Easy, right?  Nope, not here in the DR.

Here's the problem with the electricity.  We lose our electricity every day.  The amount of times that the electricity goes out and the duration that it goes out varies and is in no way a dependable schedule.  On a good day it will go out two or three times for an hour or two.  Most week days, however, it goes out sometime in the morning, and doesn't come back on until late afternoon or early evening.  On bad days, it doesn't come back on until late at night.

Here's the problem with running water.  We lose our street water several times per week.  This is more on a schedule.  For example, we know that every Wednesday and Saturday sometime during the morning, the water will go out.  Plus it will go out random other times as well with no warning.

Here's the problem with rain.  When it's rainy season, or there is a storm nearby, it rains pretty much every day.  It usually doesn't rain all day long.  It rains in short bursts, separated by sunshine.  When it stops raining and the sun comes out, there is no guarantee that it won't start raining again in a half an hour.  Sometime it's raining and sunny at the same time.  Seriously.

Here's the problem with doing laundry in the morning or early afternoon.  I work at a school.

Because of all of these factors, I had not been able to do laundry in almost two weeks.  But a couple days ago, the stars aligned, and it was sunny with running water and electricity ALL AT THE SAME TIME.  I got so much laundry done.  It was great.

I love my little automatic washing machine.  Most Dominican washing machines require the use of a bucket and hose.

Drying in the sun in our "backyard".

Drying on our porch.