Catch some Chinese; Catch a Wave...

Hoy es miercoles 28 de mayo

Domingo 25 de mayo was a special day in the Dominican… (Feliz dia de la madres) Sunday morning the three of us went to church with Donna and Phil and learned that we are God’s business cards and we need to represent him well. After church we went out for Chinese food in Cabarete, which was surprisingly good. Who knew a restaurant with English and German menus would make great Chinese… Only in the Dominican I guess.

At 3ish Rana y yo went to meet our friend Cristina from the hotel after she finished work, to come over for “lupper”. Josh made us spaghetti and meat sauce and we baked cookies and practiced our spanglish. Later on Cristina helped us take a publicar, getting the residential rate, to church in Charamicos to see Sariel y Sadrak. At the beginning of each service they always welcome new guests by making them stand up and shout out their name. Since we had been there last week and two other times we hoped it wouldn’t happen again, but as we were sitting there not understanding anything I started to hear “Canada…blah blah…Canada” and everyone turned around. So of course we turned around too but all those people were staring at us. After a little while of sitting their completely red in the face someone in the crowd yelled “stand up” so we did but still didn’t know what they were saying (even though this had happened before). After a couple more minutes of embarrassment the service went on, and afterwards we were reunited with some other friends from la año passado (last year).

Lunes 26: Rana y yo went with Donna to Nazaret and did some finishing touches on the clinic, so they could start bringing things in. We finished painting and furniture began to arrive. I also learned some more español with mi amigo and he brought me a picture he had drawn. Around 4:30 we saw hardcore rain clouds moving in over the mountains towards us so we knew it was gonna be a good one. When we got back we went swimming in the sweetest rainstorm with our neighbour and then he came up for supper (tomato soup and grilled cheese; very Dominican of us ahaha). Luego, Sadrak came over and we had a kitchen party (not like the ones in NFLD according to Rana).p.s mom and dad this was the first time it rained since being here so all that “rainy season will ruin your trip” nonsense was really nonsense!

Martes 27: After a yummy breakfast at the German bakery we went out to start moving medical supplies into the clinic. We sorted so much gauze and at least a billion bandaids and then started separating things like parasite and fungal shampoos into smaller containers. Then Rana y yo helped put together a nice desk for the doctors office without any instructions, just a picture of the finished product…fun times. Again that night our vecino (neighbour) came for dinner and stayed to teach us mas español.

Today we decided to fulfill one of our lifelong dreams: surfing! After what seemed like hours to Rana (Thanks to "Dominican Time") we finally made it to the surfing beach. We all had an AMAZING day! Each one of us got up and "rode a few waves"! However, the waves quickly reminded us of our poor arm strength! We look forward to seeing how our body works tomorrow when we get back to real work: getting the clinic up and running!

An Egg-Celent Cupleanos!!!!

FELIZ CUPLEANOS!!

Thursday was my big 20th birthday and I would have to say it was pretty great! The day started by heading out to Nazaret to help get the clinic ready. We spent to whole morning sanding the wooden doors so that they could get painted. Around lunch time we headed back to the apartmento where we got ready to make almost 300 sandwiches and hard boiled eggs. The other two "strays" that are here in the Dominican Republic decided to make "blessing bags" to handout at a village on Friday so we offered up the apartment to make everything. The afternoon was spent cutting salami, boiling eggs and running to the Supermarcado. Around supper time, as the two girls stayed at the apartment to finish the food and make bags of rice, we headed to a nearby town, Cabarete, for supper on the beach. A couple of our Dominican friends as well as two missionary families came with us to celebrate! It was so beautiful eating on the beach as the sun set!! It was pretty amazing! I even had "Happy Birthday" sang to me in Spanish and English by three guys that seranade you as you eat. It was definatly a memorable way to spend my birthday! Even though I was the birthday girl Krissie got a pretty cool gift that night! According to our Dominican friends and the missionaries Joshua and I each have "spanish" names so Krissie was beginning to feel left out. Therefore when a bunch of us took a walk up the beach, the missionaries decided on a spanish name for Krissie. So on May 22, 2008 Krissie was renamed as Kikei (pronounced key-kay)!!!

Friday we woke up early to bring the blessing bags to the village. When we got there we finished making some of the bags, checked out some of the facilities at the village and then handed the bags out. We made over 100 bags, one bag for one house. We made soooo much but as we began to move down the streets we quickly realized that we would not have enough for every house. It was easy to see that they were desperate for the little bit of food that we had. We had people begging and yelling for us to come to their house. Krissie had an amazing experience when she dropped off a special bag we had set aside for one of the families! When she handed them the bag the mom's face lit up and all the kids came around her and began to scream with excitement and they started to dance! Then as she was walking away she looked back and they all had a hand in the bag, their faces full of excitment as if they were pulling out the worlds greatest gift! On our way home we stopped by one of the worksites for this years Hero Holiday to check on the land clearing process. In the evening we stopped by Sosua by the Sea to visit our friends that work there. Tomorrow Christina, a bartender and the lady that brought us to her house last year, is coming over for supper. We're thinking spaghetti!!! Not really Dominican style but I'm sure she wouldn't mind not having rice, beans and chicken!!

Today was a full day of working at Nazaret. We smoothed out the cement walls of the clinic, then applied primer and then painted it! It took the whole day and we were lucky enough to have rice and chicken for lunch (Joshua had mashed potatos). YUM gotta love the DR! Once we arrived back home we walked up the steps and I spotted a little bird caught by his wings in some string outside the door. So after we freaked out a bit we ran and got some sissors to cut him free. We were all excited when we cut the two strings but unfortuantly instead of flying he just tumbled three floors to the groud and appeared to be dead. So after we overcame the shock we decided to go jump in the pool. However on our way down we noticed the bird was now standing. So Krissie ran and got Joshua's work gloves and the sissors again. After a few unsuccessful attempts by Krissie to catch the bird we switched jobs. With some luck I finally caught him and Krissie cut him free from the string that was around his neck. We then layed him down and he wobbled under a bush. Earlier tonight Krissie saw him fly to another part of the garden so hopefully he is o.k.! lol That was our excitment for the evening. Later this evening we headed for supper at Sosua By The Sea. Some of the workers asked us to come there for supper, their treat! It was nice being back in the restaurant where we've spent so many meals in the past but kinda weird not having 100 other students around.

We just got back from the baseball diamond where we caught a couple innings after supper! From work to food to sports, today was a pretty Dominican day!

P.S. Feliz dia de la madre!! Tomorrow is Mother's Day here in the DR! Happy Mothers Day to all you mom's and moms-to-be!

Three white kids, a 'Gua-gua' and the tourist rate

Hola Everyone!!! Rana and Krissie here huddled in our little internet corner of our apartamento! We've finally found the time to write a blog. It's been a pretty full week!

RANA: Monday we met up with a friend from past years that helps run the sponsorship at Arroyo Seco (a village that Hero Holiday has been building a school in for the past two years). He took us there so that we could meet up with a leader in the community and head of the school and begin to plan some projects. Joshua and I spent the morning colouring with the kids in one of the classrooms as Krissie took pictures of the sponsor children for updates. Around lunch time we headed to Nazaret (the village where Donna and Phil are opening the clinic) to do some quick odds and ends. We were lucky enough to see a 5 day old bambino!! She was sooo cute!

Tuesday we decided to go on our own so we squeezed into a Gua-gua (aka Dominican van that squeezes as many people in as possible = cheap ride!!) and headed towards Puerto Plata. After getting off too early we walked for about 15 minutes on the side of the highway until we finally arrived in La Union! This was the place we left our hearts last year. This is the village where many people who work at the dump live. Last year each of us fell in love as we heard their stories and each found our little amigo(a). Joshua had his littly buddy Carlos, I had my little chica, Rosalind and Krissie had her little snotball! I quickly found Rosalind as her mom recognized me right away and Carlos' mom recognized Joshua from pictures he sent Christmas time.

KRISSIE: Unfortunately my search for Wideline (aka snotball) was not quite so successful! I had brought a picture of the two of us from last year to give to her; and I also figured it would be easier to find her and explain who I was. I went straight to her house but a man didn't really understand what I was saying so he just pointed in different directions. We walked up to find Rosalind and Carlos' moms so I asked them where she and her mom were but they awkwardly tried to tell me "no mas" as in "no more" and made some actions to show her mom had died. It also eventually came out that the two of them were "finito" but I am not completely sure if that was just a mix-up in our communiation since they speak a combo of french, creiolle and spanish (I am obviously praying that is all it was). Hopefully soon we will be heading back out to La Union with a translator that can find out the real story for me... Either way it just breaks my heart to think that every day people all over the world are dying at such a young age; usually from completely preventable problems and just for being born in a less developed country. We should definitely have the resources by now to stop this from happening but we are often too busy thinking about ourselves and our own circumstances. Last year it was with Wideline that I realized that our only difference is geography; that this could be my life. This year, whether what they told me was true or not, I am even more inspired to spread her story; to inform people of the terrible realities of our world. So sadly, as it stands, my snotball became another number to add to the ridiculous statistics but I wont let her story go untold...**Hopefully I will have some exciting news from the next time we get out there!

On a lighter note, after playing soccer for a couple hours, getting my hair braided by one of the moms (I accidently said "si, me gusta" as in "yes, I like your daughters hair") and being picked up by some private tour bus on the side of the highway we made it back and headed over to Donna and Phil's to hang out and help Donna with spanish homework.

Wednesday we went with Donna to Nazaret to help organize their new additions for the school's library; finally some spanish books!!! In the afternoon the UEFA manchester united vs chelsea game was on so Rana and Josh loved the short day in the village. Just around supper time, a local friend Rana and I have known for the past two years dropped by, and we invited him to stay but he did not love our selection of chicken and lettuce attempting to be a salad. Afterwards we went to watch the baseball game at the diamond just around the block from our house and since one of the teams forfeit, Josh got to go in and play in his flip-flops (he was definitely our MVP haha). Then we grabbed some ice cream and just came back and hung out...

p.s sorry this one is so long; its been an eventful week!

Bulldozers and Hurricane Helga

Last night after church we were taken on a short little tour of the area and given some insider information (I was just too tired to continue writing). We were taken past Tablone, which was an area full of squatters that created their own houses out of tin and whatever else they could find. Now it was completely flattened so only rocks and garbage remains. It was right on the ocean so it obviously had an incredible view. Apparently a private investor came and snatched it up so the government decided to build apartmentos for the people. This was all supposed to happen 7 or 8 years ago but after problems with the politics of it, money was stolen or just disappeared, many people were out of luck. Now they have finally built new apartments for the people and just about 3 or 4 weeks ago the people moved in. This all seems like it would be incredible since the old area they lived in was contaminated and continuously making the people sick, however the new apartments meant that families of 5 or 6 were living in tiny rooms with maybe 1 or 2 beds and according to our sources "they were built very cheap, so we will see if they continue to stand"...
We were also informed about the hurricane that hit the coast of the Dominican last year. It wasn't very well publicized so people are still dealing with the aftermath. We have a connection down in the area that was affected so the three of us are hoping to maybe go check it out and see what we can do.

Please continue to pray for doors to open as we are still very much in the planning stages of what we will be doing these next few months. Gracias!!

Also check out Josh's blog at http://www.joshdueck.blogspot.com/ for different perspectives!

"God bless you...baby!"

Hoy es Domingo 18 de Mayo.
We haven't written in a couple days because the presidential elections were going on and we were warned to "lay low" just in case riots broke out. Not very surprisingly, Leonel was re-elected, and lucky for us nobody was too upset. While we waited for everything to play out we hung with Donna and Phil and went into Cabarete where we enjoyed some live Bachata a la playa (at the beach)... This was in fact Josh's reason of the day for loving the Dominican.
This morning we went to church for the english morning service, which allowed the Dominicans to practice their english on us. We met a lot of cool people there with great connections for projects in the next couple months. Afterwards we went to the beach with some other girls from Canada and some missionary kids from around here. Josh enjoyed "Banana Hammock Sunday"... Most of the locals go to the beach on Sunday's and there is standing room only, but we clearly snuck into the foreigner's beach where the European men showed us their stuff (Oh boy, I know). In the evening Rana y yo went to another church service in a Dominican community where we helped build houses in the past. We were able to surprise a couple of our friends that we keep in contact with throughout the year and luckily since we had visited before and met the pastor we didn't have to stand up and shout our names out like last time!

Please continue to pray that we will be given incredible opportunities and know what God wants us to be doing. There is such a ridiculous need here; it's hard to decide where our time and money is best spent. I think we would all also appreciate some prayer for learning spanish because our communication is kind of embarrassing.

P.S: The quotation "God bless you ... baby" comes from a fun friend we met on the street. We thought it was kind of awesome that he tried to use God to pick up girls... I hope that line doesn't work!

Everybody Do The Wave!

Hola from the Dominican! Ranita here with a little update for you!
Yesterday while Donna had spanish lessons we headed to the beach. To our surprise the beach had in Krissie's words "Tsunami sized waves"! Which for all you Newfies means the ocean had a bit of a swell on! I guess she had a nice bit of tide on, eh b'y? We spent the whole morning riding the waves and getting thrown into the beach. After a quick lunch we headed to a village called Nazareth, to visit with the children and for Krissie and another girl to see the place. We played games with the children such as pato, pato, ganso (aka duck duck goose). Krissie also had her first official DR nursing experience as a little boy badly scraped his knee and needed some first-aid. After supper at the apartamento we decided to become more Dominican and go watch baseball at the local diamond. After MY team won (Krissie and Joshua chose to cheer for the underdogs) we went to visit Sosua By The Sea again (our hotel from Hero Holiday) and bumped into an old friend that gave us some connections for projects for the next while. He also showed us the "beach" at the hotel where we always went swimming last year. Because of a storm a few months ago that wiped out all the sand the whole beach is now a three foot wall of rocks. The power of nature continues to amaze!
We started today off with a new experience! On today's breakfast menu was Frosted Flakes and Dominican milk. Milk here has always been one of my fears but I have to admit it wasn't so bad...I guess Krissie wins again. We then piled into Phil's and Donna's jeep and headed back to Nazareth. When we arrived we checked on progress in the clinics pharmacy and then got to work on painting the school floor. With oil paint from our hands to our feet we finished the floor at the school and then decided we had enough paint to do the pharmacy floor. When we were done around mid afternoon we drove home to have a snack and to rest. Krissie y yo estudiamos espanol para una hora. Impressivo, no?!!! After we cooked a fancy dancy supper consisting of fajitas we went to visit Phil and Donna at their house and learn a little more about the Dominican/Haitian culture!
Well, I'm off to defend my Newfie sayings! Come on now, who has never heard of a bedtime "lunch"!!!

Please continue to pray for our safety, health and guidance! Take care and God bless!

Dominican Sun and Leftover Pizza

Hola Amigos.
It's krissie here; and after a year of planning I have finally made it back to the Dominican.
Josh and Rana have been here since Saturday helping local missionaries in small villages and they got to work with kids at an orphanage while they anxiously awaited my arrival... Rana says "its hotter than I remembered..."
When I arrived today we just unpacked and tried to make some sort of a system to organize all 3 of our things in our cozy one bedroom apartment; and then of course we went for a swim because it was indeed very hot.
We went out for dinner to Bailey's or "Bacardi's" as Rana likes to call it and Josh made a little friend; so we shared our pizza with him. After dinner we walked to Sosua by the Sea to see our old amigos that remembered us from the past three years of Hero Holiday; and "dont tell the people" but Daneela gave us free Banana Mama's. (dont worry mom...they were extra virgin)
At 8ish (Dominican time) we met our other "stray" friends at their hotel and just walked around town. We ended up at Jolly Rogers so Joshski could watch the hockey game (yay Pittsburgh) and we were met by Julio who talked for hours and sold Josh a nice "Bachata Mania" CD.
Now we are back at el apartmento and Rana and I are having lisp wars with our retainers. Fun times! (classy, we know!)
So we are off to bed with the fan's a hummin and the motorcycles a cyclin.
Buenas noches y te amo todos!
(Good night and we love you all!)

p.s we will try to keep you all posted every couple days but we get pretty good internet on thefront corner of our porch, so we LOVE emails!

Love Rana, Krissie and Josh!