My family came to visit!

After many hours of travel, my family arrived in the DR around noon on New Year's Day. The following week-long visit was wonderful, and certainly a new experience for me in travel, translating, and cooking. In short, I think the week can be summed up in these terms: adventures with seafood, beautiful sites, and public transport. Here's a brief photo-journal of some of our activities:
On the first full day, my mother insisted on buying these live crabs from a man off the side of the highway. The next day, my Dominican sister Jayza reported having heard screams from the conference center where we were staying the night before. I told her not to worry, it was my sisters and me wrestling twelve feisty Dominican crabs into a pot to rinse, two other pots to sit, and then into boiling water (believe me, they didn't like that). Simply terrifying and hysterical. Let me just put it this way: Dreams of crab pinchers creeping over pot-rims and pots rocking on the counter of their own accord haunted me for days.

We took a day to visit the Colonial City that Christopher Columbus built upon his arrival here. This is a view of one of the defense forts used to protect the mouth of the river.

This is the oldest cathedral still in use in the New World.
(By the way, this square is one of my favorite places in the country.)

Inside

During a day at the beach:
My mother proudly cradles the eight-pound fish she just bought off a fisherman in the bay

Later, the fish makes another appearance

We opted to spend our last day together back at the beach, looking for sea urchins.

It was wonderful to have my family here, and I invite them to share some memories in the comments section of this entry! Some of the highlights for me include backrubs from my mom, sharing lime slushies with my sisters, seeing my dad ride the little public van/buses, introducing my family to my friends and co-workers, and meanwhile watching everyone try to speak Spanish. What a great time!

Now, I'm about to move to a nearby town to help out in a nursing home there. Though I don't know what internet access will be like there, I'll do my best to keep all of you updated!

Happy New Year!!

House-Keeping

I wrote the entry below yesterday, meaning to add more today and send out an update email. There's still plenty of things to say! Unfortunately, I got a fever last night that is persisting through today (not too high - don't worry), and I am taking it easy between chills, sweats, and ibuprofen. (There appear to be no blankets for miles around, so I have all my extra sheets and my bath-towels stacked up on my bed to substitute hahaha.)

You know, I thought I might be homesick if I got sick during this year overseas, but it's not all that bad. My family here checks up on me, and my colleagues called as soon as they found out to order me to rest and to come see our unit's doctor tomorrow if the fever keeps up. They've promised to call back this afternoon to check on me again. To me, these are real signs of membership/acceptance in this community. I have real friends who care about my well-being! Yay! Also on the plus side, I may be better able to face a cold shower with a fever....

And now a quick note about mail: I will be moving to a new city in about a month to start work on a different project here in the DR. To those of you who were/are planning to send mail, it can take three or four weeks to get here, even under the 7-10 day airmail plan. (Sometimes it takes less, sometimes not.) So, now's the time to get a-mailin'. And remember if you're sending bulky things to use the small, green Customs Declaration - CN 22 form (must be less than four pounds). My address is in the right-hand column of this page.

And that's it for now! I'm going to go try to take a nap. Have a good week!

Christmastime!

Advent is here, and we're all busy preparing for Christmas. The weather has cooled down remarkably (finally!) and now we enjoy days of about 84 degrees and nights of about 72. It's become fairly windy here, which Father Guelmi told me is typical of the season. (The winds are called The Christmas Breezes.) Even though we've had our plastic Christmas tree out for weeks, we finally got around to decorating it last week:


It's always fun to decorate a tree, but I felt a little funny doing it in a t-shirt and bare feet! I made a few paper snowflakes with loops of thread to hang on the tree as a decoration contribution. They twist and blow in The Christmas Breezes coming through the open window - a pretty effect.

For supper that night, we had traditional Christmastime food: Pasteles en Ojas (roughly Pies in Leaves). During December, the streets are filled with vendors selling pasteles. Last week, ours came from a batch Grandma made, and they were delicious. The pies are made by mashing plantain with other ingredients like flour to create a semi-gelatinous skin. The inside is stuffed with ground meat, beans, and spices. The whole thing is wrapped in a big plantain leaf, tied with string, and boiled until cooked. Here are some pictures of cooking and eating Grandma's pasteles last week.

Just after boiling - ready to be cut open

Father Guelmi cuts open a pastel

Inside view of the meat and beans... Mmmm.

Advent Calendars are not really done here, so I had my Dad bring a couple in November. Now there's one hanging in our living room and one in the clinic, and everybody seems very pleased with them. It's fun to be able to contribute something different from home, and be able to experience the traditions here in turn. On Christmas Eve (la Buena Noche), we'll have a special meal involving pork (I haven't been able to figure out all the details yet). On both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we'll go to special services at church. But big family gatherings and presents are saved for Jan. 6th, El Dia de Reyes, when the three kings arrived bearing gifts. I am so grateful for the wonderful family I live with here - this promises to be a special holiday season!

Catch-Up!

It's been nearly two weeks since I last posted. I can't believe it! There are so many things I want to share - be prepared for a long post.

So I'll start where I left off: The baby is born! His name is Gerald Enmanuel Rosario Pina, but he goes by Enmanuel. He weighed 9 and 1/4 pounds at birth and is a long baby with chubby cheeks and a lot of dark hair. He'll be two weeks old tomorrow, and I just got the chance to take pictures today. (He sleeps ALL the time!) I call this series: Enmanuel Wakes





Notice the single raised eyebrow in that last shot. This baby is suave.

As an added bonus to Enmanuel's birth, Grandma came to stay last week. Grandma is a riot. She comes up to about my shoulder and loves to talk. Grandma taught me the next step in my cross-stitching embroidery. She monitored my evening shower schedule so I would not get la gripe, a general term for colds/respiratory infections. (FYI: Contrary to popular belief, la gripe is caused by germs, not by getting wet.) Grandma force-fed me all week, which was fine with me, though I had to be especially stealthy to avoid the chicken feet in the soup during second and third servings. And now Grandma has invited me to come stay at her house some weekend. Looking forward to it!

At the end of last week, I took two days to do a little sight-seeing with missionaries one town over. We went to La Romana and saw the caves with indigenous drawings, an Italian-style village built by a very rich man for his wife, and spent a day at a beautiful beach in an exclusive, gated community. Being in such beautiful, exclusive places was a little bit of culture shock after the work I do here in San Pedro. I call this series: Wow Is this Different from Villa Faro or What?




But perhaps my favorite part of the trip was trying to get out of the gated community. We made several turns, and were a little uncertain of how to find the exit. So when we found a guard at an intersection, our driver (one of the missionaries from one town over) rolled down the window to ask. "Exito? Exito! Exito?!" she yelled out the window, trying to get a quick point in the right direction and not block traffic. As it turns out, exito means "success" in Spanish. So here's this car-load of Americans frantically yelling "Success?!" out a car window while a puzzled guard looks on. Hahahaha. Finally, the guard figured out what we wanted, provided the correct word ('salida') and directed us out. I laughed pretty hard for a while.

As soon as I got back from that trip, I went to the capital to see my Dad, who was here for a meeting. I took two HOT showers within twelve hours! And he brought Christmas music, pumpkin pie filling, advent calendars... true "necessities". Haha.

Everybody thought we looked exactly alike (a little scary for me.) What do you think?

He left last Tuesday, and so it was back to the clinic for a very busy few days. We have finally raised enough money to get started on the new roof! (We have about 2/3 of the estimated total cost - which has taken years to get - so we're starting with what we have.) The first phase of this project, and what we attacked this week, is cleaning out the unusable upstairs, where we've been storing medicine, equipment, and other stuff. The upstairs is dangerously filled with bat/rat droppings, so everyone has to wear a mask to avoid getting sick. I call this series: Evidence as to Our Dire Need for a New Roof





And then all of a sudden it was Thanksgiving! After a necessary international call to my mother with some questions, I successfully baked three pumpkin pies (one for the family, one for a Tday meal with Americans, and one for the office)! I got a variety of responses to them, though my favorites are as follows: The fourteen-year-old in my family took one bite and said, "This might be my new favorite pastry!" (There's no word for 'pie' here, so we use 'pastry'.) Then, after tasting the pie, two women I work with independently said, "You may get married." Apparently, that's a very high compliment indicating that my cooking is good enough that I can marry and run my own household. (Phew - What a relief! Heehee.)

Since then, I've been snacking on left-over pie, organizing a Health Promoters training on women's health, investigating merengue dance classes, trying to teach English to Enmanuel, and moving furniture in the clinic. I am avoiding cleaning my room as we speak. To close, I'll leave you with my Lost-in-Translation moment for the weekend: The Spanish words for 'piece' (pedaso) and for 'sin' (pecado) are very similar, and I often confuse them. Yesterday, Claribel asked me if I'd like any ice in my glass, and I said, "Yes, I'd like two or three sins please." Whoops....

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving everyone! Have a wonderful last week of November!

babytodaybabytoday!

The new baby is coming today!! Today today today!

Reyna was scheduled to have her C-section this coming Thursday, but her water broke early this morning and I woke to loud knocks on my bedroom door and a fast explanation from the family running out the door to go to the capital. They've been there all day.

I feel like some nervous relative in the waiting room. All of my week-long feelings of laziness have been counter-acted. I've fixed breakfast, been to church, washed all the dishes and cleaned the kitchen, visited another family, done two loads of laundry, and I keep returning to fluff our fake Christmas tree (which tends to clump) whenever there's nothing else to do. And so far no news!

Please keep Reyna and the family in your thoughts and prayers as they welcome this new baby into their lives. I am so excited I could explode. I'll try to post some pictures soon!

Seasons are Different

I have a couple little anecdotes about seasons for your reading enjoyment. Both take place with the fabulous people I work with in the clinic.

Autumn:
We got a new computer in our office! Now we can chart information and sum receipts and print-out signs... lots of good things. During the first days of the new computer, I glanced up and literally gasped out loud when I saw that the desktop background was a picture of autumn in the United States. It's that picture that comes with Windows, you know, the one with the bright red maple leaves overhanging a rustic-looking lane with a wooden fence? Anyway, about a week later the background picture was changed to something else, which made me a little bit sad. I said, "What happened to the picture of autumn?" and one of the girls said, "Oh we can find it again!" She promptly put up a picture of a spring tree with new green leaves. "Autumn, right?" I said, "No... springtime." Next, she put up a picture of yellow tulips. "Autumn?" "No, spring again." At this point I was chuckling and said I could find the picture. I quickly did, and when it was up on the desktop again, she said, "Oh no, that's a picture of a tree with all red blossoms like we have here in the summer." Hahaha. An attempt to explain color-changing leaves and bare winter branches ensued. She couldn't believe that the trees had nothing on them in winter, and I think she mostly chalked up what I was saying to lack of Spanish skills and lunacy. Oh, well - I thought it was pretty funny.

Winter:
We broke out the office Christmas decorations last week. We now have a reindeer in a sweater and holding a pair of skis sitting on the reception desk. There's also purple and gold garlands hung everywhere that remind me more of Mardi Gras than Christmas, but they're festive nonetheless. One slow morning this week, I decided to do my own decoration contribution by cutting a couple snowflakes out of white paper. This has inspired a craze, and now I'm teaching snowflake-cutting to people right and left. Everyone is so pleased when they make a few triangular cuts and out comes a beautifully lacy piece of paper - you gotta admit, that moment of opening a freshly-cut snowflake is pretty thrilling. At the beginning, I took the opportunity to explain that we make these for winter, not necessarily for Christmas, because they represent snow. I went on to say that no two snowflakes are identical, and neither are the ones we make out of paper. Etc. Etc. But then people, and most often the nurse, started asking me why I make them out of white paper, which doesn't contrast enough with the white walls. I reiterated my snow explanation, but after several days of having basically the same conversation I gave up. The nurse wants me to make several extra-big snowflakes out of bright green and red paper and then string them up from their centers and hang them from the ceiling. I think this will have more of a jungle effect than a snow effect... but that's fine! I think I'll call it the Jungle Pointsettia look...

So the moral of the story is: Seasons are different in different parts of the world. I'm having a wonderful time working and learning in a tropical Fall and Christmas season. But please step on a crunchy leaf and eat a falling snowflake for me! xo!

Villa Faro Video

Drs. Michael and Anita Dohn, who work at Clinica Esperanza and Caridad and are in charge of many things, including the Community Health program, shot this video of the Villa Faro neighborhood where we're currently setting up a new Health Promoters program.

I spend a lot of wonderful time in Villa Faro, and now you can get a live-action glimpse of what it's like! Enjoy! (And be prepared to turn up the volume... the narration is sort of soft.)