My Evening

It is 10 pm here in the Dominican Republic and for the last four hours or so I have been hanging out at the church watching the praise team practice for a fundraiser concert that we are having on Saturday night.  I can't really remember why I decided to come in the first place, I don't know why I ever thought it would only last an hour or so, none of us have eaten dinner yet and there is no end in sight.   Having said all that, I am definitely glad that I am here, because it is a pretty amazing thing to watch.  We borrowed a drum set from another church, and we have four musicians from other churches joining our praise team to play the additional instruments.  They are all learning how to play together and form one praise team.  It is kind of a disaster, but no one is giving up and I'm pretty sure that the practice will not be ending anytime soon.  I wish I had the words to express what it is like to be watching this group of people from three different countries (Dominican Republic, United States, and Haiti) working together and praising God.  Right now they are practicing a song that translates to "I will praise, I will praise, I will praise my Lord!"  I did take a couple pictures and even video.  My internet connection is very poor right now, but I will post the pictures and video when I get home (whatever time that may be).

A Very Dominican Christmas - Part 2

On Christmas Eve I experienced my first Dominican Christmas...twice.

We went to Eddy's parents' house around 7:00 for dinner.  They had a very traditional Dominican Christmas meal that included the roasted pork (of course), white rice with guandules, a special type of chicken, avocados, potato salad, green salad, rotisserie chicken, and rolls.  Let me explain a little about each food.  You already heard about the pork.  Eddy's mom called the chicken "pollo a la parla", I have no idea what that means, but it was pretty good.  Guandules are a special kind of beans that they put over the rice.  It is a very traditional part of the Christmas meal.  They are very good.  There is always avocado.  Domincan potato salad is the best potato salad in the world (it may even beat good old Key Market potato salad).  The green salad is basically shredded lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers.  And the store-bought rolls and rotisserie chicken were my contributions (along with brownies for dessert, which were a big hit).  As promised, we ate a lot.  We were both very hungry and the food was very good.  Plus it made his mom very happy.  After dinner we hung out for a little while and visited the girls. 

The day before, Lelo had invited us over for dinner.  We explained that we would love to come but we were eating dinner at Eddy's mom's house.  Eddy's mom's name is Ana and she is Lelo's sister.   Lelo told us not to eat very much at Ana's, but we told her we were planning on eating a lot.  This somehow translated to her believing that we were eating dinner with their family and planned on eating a lot. 

Around 9:15 Eddy's mom informed us that Lelo told her we were eating dinner with them.  (In retrospect, it was probably good that we ate a lot at her house, because his mom was probably watching to see.)  So we headed over to Lelo's.  They had even more food than Eddy's mom.  We were so full.  Right before we started, Eddy told me not to worry about it, just take a little salad.  However, in the Dominican culture, the guests serve themselves first.  They all watch what and how much you take, and it is very rude to only take a little.  There was no way I was getting away with only taking salad.  So I took a little bit of everything.  I had read somewhere that it takes your brain 20 minutes to know that the stomach is full.  My strategy was to eat it all very fast so that I finished before my stomach told my brain how full it was.  Just as I was almost finished I realized the flaw in my plan.  My plate was almost empty and everyone else had just started eating.  Dominican mom's don't like empty plates so early.  I tried to hide it, but one minute later, my empty plate was spotted and I was served more pork.  This time, I ate it very slowly so as not to be served more and when everyone else was finishing, snuck the rest onto Eddy's plate.

All in all, it was a lot of fun but it was also a little emotional for me.  Lelo and her husband live right across the street from our apartment.  Eddy's two single cousins still live there and his two married cousins live in two houses built a few yards behind Lelo's house.  We spend a lot of time with their family and at Christmas dinner it was very apparent that they consider us a part of their family.  After dinner Eddy's mom and dad and sister came over as well and we all sat around and talked and celebrated for a few more hours.  It was my first Christmas without my family in the states but my first Christmas with my family in the Dominican Republic. I think I am starting to get used to having so many conflicting emotions at the same time.

I did take lots of pictures and I would love to share them with you but my wonderful husband, who I love, accidentally erased my memory card.  Maybe next year.  Merry Christmas!

A Very Dominican Christmas - Part 1

Ever since four days after my wedding, I have been very aware that I was not going to be going back to the states for Christmas.  It has been a journey for me accepting that fact, which was somewhat more difficult than I thought it would be.  A couple days ago, God opened my eyes and reminded me that yes, this will be my first Christmas without my family, but it is also my first Christmas that I would be celebrating with Eddy.  I have 29 years of Christmas memories with my family and this year I will be creating my first set of Christmas memories with my husband.  I decided to embrace and enjoy my first Dominican Christmas and be prepared for anything.

Yesterday was December 23.  All of the family parties here are celebrated on Christmas Eve night, and the most prevalent tradition is that everyone eats roasted pork on Christmas.  Yesterday was an eye-opening day of learning about pig roasts.  First, in the afternoon, I heard the pigs screaming on their way to slaughter.  Apparently, they somehow know that they are on their way to slaughter and scream all the way to the slaughter house.  It is a very unpleasant sound.

Later in the evening, we walked over to Eddy's mom's house to talk for a while and then stopped by his aunt's house to visit them as well.  It was after 10, so I was already thinking about going to bed.  However, they invited us to come back, because they wanted me to go with them to go visit the pigs roasts that were happening in the area.  They wanted us to come back in two hours, but we convinced them to go in one hour.  They told me that I needed to learn that on the 23rd and 24th, you don't sleep.  So at 11, we went out walking, Eddy and I with his aunt and uncle and about 7 other cousins.  Usually, we don't go out at all at night, let alone walking far distances, but since it was the 23rd of December, everyone is still up and out, plus we had a big group, so it was safe.  The first place we stopped was right down the street and they had about 10 pigs roasting, however it was close to a colmado, so there were a lot of people around and I (as an American) was drawing a lot of attention, so we kept on walking.

We walked for almost a half an hour, in the rain, on a dirt road full of holes, rocks and mud to get to the next pig roast.  It was very dark and there were no lights, so the walking was difficult.  This pig roast was at the house of one of Eddy's cousins so it was safer and more relaxed.  They had between 20 and 30 pigs roasting.  There were a group of men working there, that would be staying up all night to continue turning and roasting the pigs.  When we arrived, the first thing we heard was the snorting of a very large, live pig in a pen nearby.  Then I saw the pig-roasting hut with two levels of pigs being roasted.  Nearby there were two boys between the ages of 7 and 10 plucking the feathers out of two chickens.  In the time that we were there they plucked all the feathers, cut the heads off and then put them on a wooden stick to roast them.

Most of the time, I tried my best to stay pretty far away from the action. Everyone kept saying to me, "son bonito no Carolina?"  Which translates to "they are beautiful, aren't they Carrie?"  Umm.... beautiful is not the word I would have used.   Also, Eddy's family does not really take no for an answer so at one point they did make me go over to take a couple pictures.  In order to do that I had to pass by where the chickens had been.  My goals was to not step on one of the chicken heads laying on the ground, not look completely freaked out, and not hit my head.  I did succeed in not stepping on the heads, but I think I failed in my other two goals.

the first stop

hanging out after a long walk

a few of the pigs

the pig roasting shack

They were very proud of their chickens.

right after the chicken head incident

Eventually we did head out on our 30 minute walk back home.  Luckily it had stopped raining by then.  On the way home I asked Eddy if they only did that for me.  But he explained that it is a tradition of theirs to go out late at night on the 23rd to visit and see the pigs being roasted.  So, my first Dominican Christmas tradition completed.  Eddy commented that I am probably the only American ever to see a Dominican pig roast in that way.  It does make me feel good that Eddy's family doesn't really think of me as "american" anymore.  I'm just Carolina to them.  And I am thankful that I have the opportunity to be a part of a Dominican family and that I get to witness things that are very "Dominican" and that many Americans that live here do not ever get to be a part of.

I do not know what today will bring.  I do know that I will be expected to eat a lot of pork, so hopefully I am able to find a way to do that.  I also know that tomorrow I will have plenty of things to write about.

Random Facts - Las Mañanitas

This year I will be experiencing my first Dominican Christmas.  There are very different Christmas traditions here than those of the United States.  One of those traditions involves "Las Mañanitas".  Saturday morning I was woken up at 5 am by a group of Mañanitas.  It literally translates to "the little mornings" but the name actually refers to the people and originates from the fact that this tradition is done very early in the morning.  It is a little bit like caroling, but definitely has a Dominican twist.  The tradition is to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning and get together with a large group of people to walk through the neighborhood singing with the accompaniment of a tambora.  This is like a hand drum, but much louder.  The do not sing soft christmas carol type songs, they sing fast, loud, merengue songs, which is the most traditional type of song here.  They walk through the neighborhood, stopping at each house and sing until the family in the house wakes up and comes out.  Sometimes, they will get invited in for some jengibre, which is a traditional Christmas tea.  You might think that people would find it annoying to be woken up so early in the morning, however, the people here love it and yesterday it created a sense of excitement and joy and celebrating in our neighbordhood, having all been visited by a group of Las Mañanitas. I enjoyed it as well.

Random Facts

Since arriving in the DR, I have spent a lot of time learning about culture.  Both American culture and Dominican culture.  I have talked a little bit about cultural differences in the past, but there are so many more random facts (that I find interesting) that I have learned.  I thought I would start a new series of posts and share some of these random interesting facts as they occur to me.

#1 Halls cough drops are everywhere here.  Every colmado and mini-market has them.  They are one peso each.  If they don't have correct change for you, they will get as close and they can with coins and then give you the rest in Halls.  Both adults and children eat them like candy.  And not just the fruity ones, the intense Halls in the blue and black wrapping too.  If you are with someone and they need to run into a colmado for something, you can be sure that you will be offered a Halls when they get back.
 

Café con leche

Eddy and I were lucky enough to take our engagement pictures on a beautiful Dominican beach. I love those pictures. Something that I noticed right away was that almost every Dominican we showed those pictures said, "Oh que lindo, café y leche." Translated: "Oh, how beautiful, coffee and milk." They were, of course, referring to our skin colors and how beautiful our skin is next to each other. Something similar happened at the grocery store. We were buying groceries and when the check-out girl gave me my change, she had two pesos, one that was older and dark and one that was new and lighter. And she said to me, "look, it's just like you and him, one dark and one light but together forever." (She saw my ring).


People in the Dominican Republic are much more comfortable talking about skin color. It is not a taboo subject. It is not something that is offensive to meantion, it is just a fact. I am white and Eddy is black. It is just a description of how we look, the same as saying that I am blonde or have blue eyes.  What I appreciate is that they not only can recognize it but they appreciate the beauty in it.

Our differences don't stop with skin color, however.  Eddy and I are different in a lot of ways.  We come from two very different backgrounds and cultures.  He is Dominican and I am American.  His first language is Spanish and my first language is English.  I grew up in a Christian home, and Eddy became a Christian as a teenager.  I grew up on pot roast and mashed potatoes, he grew up on rice and beans.  And the list could go on.

However, something that is much more important than how we are different is how we are the same. We are both children of God. We were both saved by Christ's death on the cross. We are both Christians who are seeking God's will for our lives.  We both have a desire to live a life pleasing to God.  We were both led here by God and we both feel called to continue serving Him in this ministry.  We both are sure that God brought us together for His purposes and we both desire to put God at the center of our relationship and, one day, our family.

When you are able to see that truth, that where it matters we are the same, then how you view the differences changes as well.  Our differences no longer look like problems or reasons for doubt.  Those differences, just like our skin colors, are now beautiful.  Those differences now speak about God's love and the beauty in His plan for our lives.  The fact that He brought us together from such different places and that He gave us the faith to follow Him and that He worked in our hearts and our lives to join us together so that we could serve His kingdom together here in the Dominican Republic, is beautiful.  I am amazed by it and so thankful for it and I thank God that He has opened my eyes so that I can now see it. 

I invite you to see the beauty in the plan that God has for your life.

Changes

I have made some big changes since I returned to the Dominican Republic.  The biggest one being that I have moved.  For about four months I was living in the apartment of another missionary while she was in the United States.  It was a very nice, two-bedroom apartment in a more wealthy area.  Very similar to what an apartment would be like in the US.  If you are a follower of my blog, you might remember my entry a few months ago about my decision to move in with a Dominican family in a neighborhood close to our school.  A few months ago, God led me to the decision to make myself as much a part of the community that I am serving as I can.  I made the decision then, but now I have actually done it. 

I am now living with Eddy's sister Guillermina and her two daughters Adriani and Adriana.  The girls are five and seven.  Guille's husband lives in New York and only comes home about once a year to visit.  This is actually a pretty common situation here.  My new place is a two-bedroom apartment as well, however, the whole apartment could fit into the living room of my old place.  The girls sleep with their mom and my bedroom is tiny.  The headboard and the foot of the bed touch opposite walls and I have about two feet next to my bed.  If I were to guess I would say the room is 6x6 feet, maybe 7x7.  There are no closets so my clothes are hanging on a bar that is in one of the corners of the room and all of my stuff is either on my new bookshelves of in a suitcase under the bed.  Almost everything that I own came here in four suitcases, but I still had a really difficult time fitting all of my stuff into my room.  I tried to take pictures, but it's so small that i can't get far enough away from anything to take a picture of it.

There are many other differences between my old apartment and my new one as well.  I no longer have an inverter, so when the electricity goes out, it's out.  Also, there is no hot water.  I don't know if I will ever get used to the ice-cold showers.  Because there are no screens, the bugs and mosquitos are very bad.  I even sleep with a mosquito net. However, with all of this said,  I have to say that I love it.  I love living here and I love being a part of a family.  Not just Guille and the girls, but the whole family.  Eddy and his parents, Guille's two other sisters, three aunts and countless cousins all live withing walking distance and are always at each other's houses.  The women are such caretakers.  They are always insisting on cooking for me and doing things for me.  For example, Yasmin, the oldest sister, keeps insisting on doing my laundry.  I don't know how to tell her that I would prefer to do it myself.  I also love living with the girls.  They are so cute and they love coming into my room and hanging out with me, they are so amazed by all my stuff and love doing my hair. 

God definitely knew what He was doing when he led me to this decision.  Being a part of this family has blessed me so much and will continue to bless me in ways that I'm probably not even aware of yet and I pray that I am a blessing to them as well.

Sancocho Night with Francisca

On monday night, I had a quintessential Dominican experience.  Eddy's aunt Francisca invited us over for sancocho.  Sancocho is a very popular Dominican meal.  It is similar to stew and has a little bit of everything in it.  Usually sancocho is reserved for special occasions, probably because it takes a long time to make and also costs more to make because it has so many ingredients.  Eddy says that now I can be sure that Francisca loves me because she doesn't make sancocho for just anyone.  Everybody makes sancocho a little bit differently.  For this occasion, she made it with yuca, plantains, potatoes, carrots, chicken, beef, corn, and of course some mystery ingredients that I didn't ask about.  Now, when I say that it has chicken and beef, I mean big chunks of chicken and beef, bones and all.  And when I say that it had corn, I mean on the cob. 

So let's picture this for a second, I am there to eat sancocho with Eddy and his parents, and Francisca hands me a huge bowl, (full of these giant pieces of vegetables and meat) and a spoon...  How do you eat stew with corn on the cob in it with a spoon?  How do you eat stew with a chicken leg in it with a spoon?  and of course, I'm the guest, so I'm expected to eat first. I'm sure my face was priceless.  But, now I have started the process of  learning how to eat sancocho. With your bowl you have a big plate, first you put a huge helping of white rice on your plate and then some of your sancocho and then, of course, a few pieces of advocado.  The problem is that I am trying to eat with good table manners, which is impossible.  Every time I try to take a part of a gigantic piece of yuka or carrot with my spoon, I try to do it as carefully as possible so that my food doesn't go flying everywhere and as soon as I get halfway through it my spoon quickly cuts through the rest and crashes into the plate making a loud noise, which embarrasses me everytime, but everyone else finds hilarious. 

Francisca, being a the wonderful Dominican host that she is, doesn't even have a place set for herself.  She is busy running around and preparing things and bringing more and more food to the table.  At one point she came back with bananas, which I was expected to dip in my broth, I think.  The thing about Dominican moms (and aunts) is that they always tell you that you have not eaten enough and force you to eat more.  And when I pretend like I don't understand, they always tell Eddy to serve me more and tell me to eat it.  Also, sancocho is served very hot, which can be a little uncomfortable because I don't think it's ever less than 90 degrees here, and by the time you finish, all you want is a glass of cold water.  But apparently there is a rule that you can't drink cold water after eating sancocho for several minutes, and when you are finally allowed to, you may only drink small amounts at a time.  So there Eddy and I are with our little glasses as Francisca serves us 1/4 of a cup at a time of cold water.  At this point Eddy's parents leave and tell us to stay and talk to Francisca because "Francisca loves talking to Carolina" which is amazing to me because we can not understand each other at all.  But I do love talking to her too, so we stay and talk for a while and then, at the end of the evening, she gives me a sandwich-sized ziplock bag as a present.  Or as she called it, a 'fundito', which translates to 'little bag'. 

I thought my heart might burst with love for this woman.

27 Waterfalls

Yesterday, fourteen of us piled into this pick-up truck and headed to 27 Waterfalls. It is a place in the mountains where you can climb, swim, and hike up waterfalls and then slide, swim, and jump back down. I wish I could have taken pictures of the actual adventure, but I thought you might also like to see how 14 people fit in a small pick up truck (four of us are in the cab).

dominican experiences

Here are a few pictures of me teaching the third grade class. They have class in the partially built house and their room is very cramped so I try to bring them out into this open area as often as possible for class.

In this picture we are playing a review game (boys vs. girls).



In this picture, I am teaching them a new song.








A few weekends ago, Katie and I went on a beach trip. Osiris (the assistant pastor at our church) is starting a sister church very soon, and as a fundraiser, he planned a beach trip. About half of the people that went were from our church and we knew them, the other half are members of his new church. Shelley and Guille did not go, so it was basically me and Katie and 30 Dominicans crammed into two gua-guas (vans). But of course, they were an hour late leaving the church, and then one of the vans broke down and we sat on the side of the road for about an hour and then finally tracked down a new guagua, which needed gas of course, so we ended up getting a very late start, but that is to be expected here. Katie and I were expecting a typical tourist beach, so we didn't pack a lunch. When we got there, we were shocked to find out that this was not a tourist beach. I cannot imagine a more 'dominican' beach. We were the only Americans there. There were no gift shops or restaurants. Just lots of dominicans with loud music playing out of speakers that were as big as their cars and dominoes games being played everywhere, shacks containing people cooking fish and rice and chicken lined the 'street'. Our search for a bathroom included walking through a 'dance club' (basically a tin roof with loud music and presidente) and being told we needed to pay 10 pesos to get the key to a tin home-made outhouse painted pink. It was definitely a dominican experience. I wish that I could have taken pictures of everything that we saw and experienced, but it was not a place for tourists and we were trying to blend as much as possible so taking pictures would have been a bad idea. I did take this picture while hiding next to our van so that no one could see me. Of course all of the women had gotten up two hours early to make a complete dominican meal for lunch so Osiris' wife, Manuela, gave us some of her food and it was so good we asked her if she would teach us how to cook. So last week we went over to her house and spent almost 6 hours there walking miles searching for chicken and spending hours learning how to cook a real dominican meal. We took lots of notes and took pictures of every step to help us remember. It is a lot of work. We both definitely have a lot more respect for dominican women and the amount of work that they put into every meal.



























A few weeks ago, we decided that going to a salon and getting haircuts would be a good idea. When we went in to make the appointments, the lady told me that my hair was boring and that she would make it more exciting, so I was pretty nervous. Luckily for me, however, Katie went first. We were there for hours. Katie had long hair before we went in and asked for a trim. However, she ended up with a bob. She cut a lot off. So by the time she got to me, she was so worried about cutting too much off, even though I kept telling her that she could, she barely cut anything of. However she did style it in a very fluffly, bouncy way. This is a picture of me at the salon.

My New Home

I had an interesting experience at our goodbye activity for the Illiana group Sunday night. Several of our church members were there and Shelley gave everyone the opportunity to say something to the group if they wanted to. Many of the church members said thank you to the group for helping, and many of members of the Illiana group talked about what a blessing the experience was. We did a similar activity when I came on my work team in August. It is always an emotional experience.

I decided early that I wasn't going to say anything. I had been listening to Katie (who is leaving Saturday) talk with some of the girls in the group about their families and how much they missed them, so I was already feeling emotional and I didn't want to cry in front of the whole group. So my plan was to not talk. But, as usual, God had other plans. Just as everyone was finishing their comments, I realized that I had not had the opportunity to share with the Illiana kids my story of how I ended up in the Dominican Republic. I did speak in chapel in November, but I'm sure that they don't all remember that. So I was feeling like I really should tell them and that I really should encourage them to allow God to lead them in their lives as well, just as I did in chapel.

At that moment a mosquito flew in my face and I swatted it away, Shelley saw it and took it as me raising my hand to talk, so I went with it even though I hadn't really thought through what I was going to say. But as I had been sitting there listening to everyone, I was very aware of the difference between them and me. They were just wrapping up their trip and heading back to my hometown, where all of the people I miss are, and I am just starting my life here. I don't allow myself to actively think about and miss my family and friends the way that they had been earlier that evening because I am afraid it would consume me. I haven't even reached my halfway point yet. Having the Illiana group there was very good for me. It was very much like having a piece of home there. A bunch of Dutch kids from my high school and a chaperon that was actually my teacher and coach. It was difficult to know that they were leaving and I was staying.

And as I started sharing with them about how God had brought me here, and how he had led me back again, I did start crying, but then something interesting happened. I all-of-a-sudden was surrounded by and was very aware of my new Dominican family, all of the people that God has brought into my life since I arrived here. Sleeping in my lap was Eliseo, one of the children that I love as if they were my own nieces and nephews, and then Bartolow (the resident 'grandpa' of our church) came and put his hands on my shoulders and handed me his hanky, and then Eddy, my best Dominican friend, was there as well, and the whole time that I am speaking, I am looking and talking to my sister in Christ, Shelley, who is crying with me as I talk. In that moment, as I was feeling very sad about saying goodbye to my piece of home, God comforted me in a very real way with the people that are pieces of my new home.