Camino de Jesus

I have been thinking a lot lately about culture. My culture as a Dutch American, the culture of America in general, and the culture here in the Dominican Republic. The culture here is so different in so many ways and I often find myself in situations where I don't fully understand what is happening or why. As a result I spend a lot of time thinking about where I'm coming from, how I think based on my culture and the difference between that and where the people that I am meeting are coming from and how they think based on their culture. I believe that in order to navigate through life here I really have to have a firm understanding of that. I have also been thinking a lot about how much I want to make myself a part of the Dominican culture or, on the other hand, how much I want to separate myself from it. In general, I have been trying to figure out what kind of life God wants me to build here.

The fact that my experience here is very unique is both freeing and overwhelming at times. Most of the Americans that I have met, including Shelley, came to work at Santiago Christian School (SCS). This is an english-speaking school where all of the teachers are American. If you are a teacher at this school they assign you a nice apartment with roommates, you speak English all day, you have American roommates and American friends. Everything is planned out for you. For me, however, it is very different. I have the freedom and added responsibility of figuring it out for myself.

I am approaching a fork in the road. I will be living in this apartment until the end of July. After that, I don't know where I will be living for the following school year. The first idea that we had was that maybe I could move in with some of the teachers from SCS. I have had the opportunity to get to know some of the teachers there and they have an empty room. I would first need to get permission from SCS, however. If I were to move in there, my life would be pretty comfortable. I would be living in a very nice apartment with some great Christian American girls who are teachers as well. A friend from high school would be living in the same building. I could probably even get away with riding the SCS bus to and from work. It's a great plan and I believe that I could grow there and build a life there. However, God always seems to have other plans for me.

The day before Katie left, we went to Eddy's house to meet his family. We had a great time. They were so welcoming and open to us. I hadn't been that comfortable or happy since I arrived here. Which was odd considering I was surrounded by a bunch of people that I didn't know and didn't speak my language. It should have been the most uncomfortable that I have been. On the ride home, Katie (who knew that I had been struggling to find the balance and find my place here) turned to me and said that maybe I should move in with a Dominican family. That maybe that's what I needed to really feel at home here.

So I have been thinking about it a lot. And I have really been trying to seek God's wisdom in this decision. And it's interesting because He keeps leading me to Bible verses and sermons that are really speaking to me. For example, the other day I listened to a sermon, in which the pastor opened my eyes to the the fact that we put a really high value on comfort in our American culture. And I realized that that was what I was struggling with because that is what I would be giving up. I would be giving up my comfort. My own space with privacy, a hot water heater, and real running water. The place that I would be living in is in a poorer neighborhood where the living conditions are much different than the ones I am living in right now. But they are the living conditions of most Dominicans and I know that it would be beneficial for me in so many ways if I were to make the decision to live there. Over the last couple of weeks, I have continued to spend time in that neighborhood and with some Dominican families from my church and the feeling of peace and happiness that overcomes me when I am there is almost unbelievable to me. To a Dominican mom, there is nothing sadder than the fact that I live alone. They worry about me so much. It doesn't matter to them that I live in a really nice two-bedroom apartment, in wealthier neighborhood, or that I have some comforts that they don't have. Because those are not the things that they hold as being important. To them, people are important and family is important and living alone is the worst living condition that they can think of.

This decision feels a lot like the decision to move down here in the fact that it feels like the decision was made without me. I know that it will be difficult at times, that I will struggle with the cultural balance and the lack of American comforts, but if this is what God wants for me, then I have to be open to it and He is making me open to it. I know that I would grow as a person and in my faith in many ways and that it could help me be better suited for the work that He wants me to do here. I believe that God sent me here to be a part of it not to be on the outside looking in. I just have to figure out exactly what that means and how it will show itself in my life.

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.

the last two weeks

Here are some pictures of the people in my life.


This is a picture of me with Eddy and Katie, my two best friends down here. Katie is leaving to go back to Kansas Saturday morning. :(






This is a picture of Katie with our neighbors. They came over the other night because the twins needed help with their english homework. They brought 'arroz con leche' for us to eat as well. They are always bringing food over for us. Yesterday it was mangoes, and today we went over to their apartment for lunch. It was amazing.






This is a picture of the 'Hernandez family'. It was taken at the monument. Guille, Shelley, Mark, and Sarah, with their two new adopted members of the family.





Here are some of the highlights of the week that the Illiana group was here.


This is a picture of me and Katie shopping at the beach.












This is a picture of me running the projector for the praise team at church on Sunday.










In this picture I am playing ball in the rain with some of the kids, while other people worked.
:)











In this picture the Illiana group is singing a song in Spanish as part of our Sunday service.














This was taken at our goodbye activity.








This last picture shows how we filled the columns with cement. In case you can't see, they are passing buckets full of cement up to the top, dumping it in, and passing them back down. We filled seven columns that way. It was a long, but successful day.

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.

illiana group

So life has been really crazy over the last couple of weeks and I have had absolutely no time to blog. I am way behind so I will have to write about my haircut and beach trip another time. For now, I want to write about the awesome Illiana work team that is here this week. I am exhausted. It has been a week of construction, long days, and getting to know some great kids.

They arrived last Saturday night and will be leaving us early Monday morning. On Sunday, they began their week by sitting in on our Sunday School classes and attending our worship services. In the afternoon, we had an Easter activity. We had almost 100 kids show up. Most of them are students from our school, but others were from the neighborhood or friends and neighbors of our students. We were not expecting that many kids, but it was very exciting. The group performed a skit and helped with the craft and the games. We wanted to give them an opportunity to interact with some of the kids that they were helping by being here.

We did construction work on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We got a lot accomplished. They worked on bending and cutting re-bar and forming baskets and attaching those baskets to the existing columns. They also poured seven columns and finished two of the walls. We are definitely much closer to finishing the first floor. They worked very hard (starting at 6:30 a few of the days) and were very good sports even when setbacks happened.

On Wednesday we went to the beach. The beaches here in the Dominican Republic are so beautiful. Katie and I enjoyed shopping with the girls and helping them barter, making sure that they weren't ripped off. We all had dinner together (at the place offering 1/2 off, of course) and then spent a long 3 hour ride home in the vans.

Today was our last work day, and even though Katie and I could barely get out of bed, we arrived to find the group 'pumped' and ready to get to work. They achieved the goals that they had set for themselves and can definitely feel a sense of accomplishment. Today, Katie and I stayed after work and had dinner with them and also stayed for the evening activity for the first time because we heard that it was going to be line dancing. We had a great time line dancing and playing games with them. They are an awesome group of kids and I have really enjoyed getting to know them and hanging out with them.

It is midnight now, and we just got home. We barely remember the time when we used to do more than just sleep at our apartment, but it has definitely been worth it. Tomorrow is the group's last day here. I am excited to spend Easter with them. We have Sunday School and church, then lunch at the monument, and then a goodbye activity planned for the evening. I will post pictures tomorrow or Monday, but for now, I am going to bed.

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.

Nuevo Apartmento

The last week has been pretty eventful. Katie arrived Friday night. She had spent a month in Equador, was back in the states for two days and then flew here. She is going to be helping me with my English classes as well as working with individual students who are falling behind. She will be here for about a month.

That same day I got sick....again. This time it is a sinus infection. There was a cold front that came through. I was hoping it was just a cold, but each day it got worse and worse. Yesterday, when Guille saw me, he asked me if I felt as bad as I looked :) So I got the Spanish name of an antibiotic from the school nurse at Santiago Christian School and stopped at the Farmacia and picked it up on my way to my new apartment. It's still very weird to me that you can just go to the pharmacy and buy things without a prescription. They sell them by the pill. Crazy. But it has now been 24 hours since I started taking them and I am starting to feel better.

The last couple days are pretty foggy. I was feeling really bad, taking a lot of over-the-counter medicine, and I was pretty out of it. I probably shouldn't have worked but I didn't feel like I could stay home because Monday was Katie's first day and yesterday we brought our stuff to school and moved into our new apartment after school, so I couldn't have stayed home. The hardest part about it was that in this culture you can't keep your distance from people, even if it is just because you don't want to get them sick. Everyone greets you with a hug and kiss on the cheek and to avoid that would be rude.

Since we moved into the apartment 24 hours ago, it has felt a little bit like an adventure. All of a sudden we are on our own, forced to figure things out for ourselves. There was no food in the house last night, so we successfully ordered Dominoes, we were very proud of ourselves. Today we only worked for a few hours. We went grocery shopping on our way home. For lunch we made salads with cucumbers and avocados. It's been so long since I had a salad. We were very excited about it. After napping for a few hours, we decided to explore the area. We walked around for over two hours, never actually finding the plaza that we were looking for. We weren't always sure where we were going, but I do know the area well enough that I knew I would be able to find our way back. We did find a different grocery store, a few places to eat, an art gallery, a bakery, a florist, and Yogen Fruz. Yogen Fruz is frozen yogurt blended with your choice of frozen fruit. It was so good.

I am very thankful that Katie is here with me my first month living alone. She speaks a lot more Spanish than I do, and since she lived in Equador for a month, she doesn't seem intimidated at all by the new country, language, and culture. There's no way that I would have been brave enough to order pizza or wander around Santiago by myself. All the things that we did would not have felt adventurous in the states, but here, in a different country, with a language I don't speak, with people staring or laughing or hissing at you wherever you go, it takes courage.

I can see now how God worked out my transition to my new home. I was given two months to spend as part of a family, where I had all of the help I needed as I got adjusted to the Dominican Republic. It was time when I was really able to get to know Shelley and Guille and the kids. It feels very strange not being around them all the time. And now that it is time for me to move out on my own and become independent, I have been given a roommate for the first month of independence, who knows the language and is not afraid of stepping outside of her comfort zone, to help me as I figure out how to navigate life here. I don't know how I would have adjusted without being given these gifts.

"I am trying to understand, how to walk this weary land. Make straight the paths that crooked lie, Oh Lord, before these feet of mine... When my world is shaking, Heaven stands. When my heart is breaking, I never leave your hands. Your hands. Your hands that shape the world are holding me, they hold me still." JJ Heller 'Your Hands'