Transitions

Hello again to those that have been faithfully following this blog that has traveled with me for 2 significant trips to the Dominican Republic!

I realize that I already titled a post "Transitions" but I guess transitions are a kind of theme in life and I think it's an appropriate title once again.

A couple big transitions are currently happening in my life. I am transitioning into taking a more permanent residence in the DR teaching at Doulos. Also, as Matt's fiance, I am transitioning from being in a dating relationship with him to a married one. With that transition, we will soon be having to learn to share many more things than we do now, for instance a place of residence, toothpaste, savings' accounts, etc. We do have some time before we have to get to those scary things.

However, since these 2 big transitions are happening in our lives currently, we did decide to make one big shift and start to share one thing-a blog. So, though this blog has served me well (and I have served it in mediocrity by posting very sporadically and much less consistently toward the end of any trip), I decided that it was time to part ways with it and start a new one that I can share with Matt and that is better suited to the both of us.

So, without further ado, here is the link to our new blog:

http://adventureswithmattandkristen.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Growth

Wow, it's been quite a while since I have updated-almost a month! Much has happened in the last several weeks, and yet it's sort of just felt like normal life as we've settled into as much of a routine as you get into here, which really is no routine at all. The most probable reason for my delay is that for the last several weeks I have had full classroom responsibilities. That's right, folks, I have become a full-time teacher. It's been a lovely and terrifying ride and it's not over yet, but it is getting closer and closer.

The last weeks have held much joy and laughter, many tears, frustrations and breakdowns. Above all, I have experienced much growth. I have grown so much through this experience already and look forward to the ways in which I will continue to grow. Matt also has been growing a lot and it's been really cool for us to watch each other and ourselves grow, both separately and together.  I think that before this experience a small part of us feared that through this experience we would change in ways that would cause us to grow apart, if we were being honest with ourselves. But the experiences we've had and the ways in which we have evolved have only served us and not harmed us. We've grown closer to being the people we want to be and we've still grown closer together. And through him I'm learning more and more about what it means to be like Christ.

Many other exciting (mostly good but some bad) things have happened the last few weeks. Let's start with the bad: Matt got a Dominican kind of poison ivy which enters into the blood stream and eventually spread over his entire body. We finally went to the clinic to get a steroid shot and he's almost fully recovered but it was extremely painful and uncomfortable for him. That was a difficult week and I can't really even imagine how difficult it was for him. But on a happier note, over the last several weeks I have been able to celebrate the wedding of a new good friend (at which the wedding party drove in on motocross bikes, glow-sticks came out, and we set off chinese lanterns), serve some of my students through doing Work Crew at a weekend Young Life camp (at which I threw water balloons and flour bombs at them, stepped on a nail, watched a chicken lay an egg in the middle of club, played a lot of volleyball, laughed a lot and deepened relationships) and make a spontaneous weekend trip to Santiago, where I got to revisit a lot of my old hangouts with Matt and spend the rest of the time relaxing and visiting with my old host family, who enjoyed meeting Matt very much.

Even on my rough days, I can't complain. I know that it's all worth it. I know that this is exactly where I am supposed to be. In my hardest times, at my lowest points, God has provided an abundance of encouragement to me through His Word and through other people surrounding me in the community, reminding me of where my worth comes from. I miss home very much but I'm so thankful for where I am right now. I have been blessed beyond belief here and experienced God's grace and mercy in ways that I certainly didn't deserve. I am humbled daily by all that I have learned and experienced here in these weeks thus far. I look forward to the weeks to come and especially look forward to when my family (minus Katelyn) comes to visit and experience a taste of my life here! It will be so wonderful to have them here and get a little time to show them around here and also to have some time to relax with them :) I miss all of you and hope that all is well wherever you are at!

Much love,
Kristen

Desafíos y logros and camping in the mountains

This week has had a ton of ups and downs for both Matt and I. Through a long string of miscommunications between resources at the school and ourselves and his host family, we found ourselves in a real-life nightmare game of telephone and a grand resulting conflict. After both the host family and consequently Matt and I carefully tried to resolve it by talking with a third party so as to not step on toes, Matt and I still felt frustrated and as though our situation was not well-understood and as though it hadn't accomplished much. So we finally decided to just meet with the family itself to talk it out. Thankfully, this was the best decision that was made. Very shortly into our conversation with them, both parties realized that the other party had never intended all of the negative or simply inaccurate things that had been conveyed to them. I began by explaining our situation in Spanish (the father speaks English and the mother understands a lot of English but we wanted to try and convey our thoughts in their first language) and when I was overcome with too much emotion to continue, Matt picked up where I left off and we eventually got everything sorted out, even the little things that had much less significance than we thought and we realized that both parties cared very deeply about the other and it is all far behind us now.

But we (and even the host family) did learn many things throughout this whole ordeal which turned out to be quite a blessing to us. One of those lessons is to always go directly to the person  involved before going to a third party. As well meaning as that third party is, it just adds opportunity for inaccurate information, hurt feelings, and unresolved conflict. I'm pretty sure there's a letter in the Bible that urges Christians to follow that hierarchy of addressing problems and I have found the Bible to have very wise and useful advice so who am I to argue? Secondly, Matt and I also learned a lot about ourselves and our relationship. It was so cool for me to see how we handled a situation like this. Even though we realized eventually that no one was challenging us in our relationship, it felt very much throughout much of it that various people were challenging it. And we were truthfully able to defend it. We didn't have to hide anything. We didn't have to lie. We didn't have to worry that our relationship wasn't worth this or that our imaginary opposition was correct. We didn't need to turn on each other or accuse one another. We could face this perceived opposition together and stay on the same side, and that was such a good feeling and such a blessing to us. In the same vein, we also learned that we could trust one another to communicate for one another in difficult situations such as this. I was speaking in Spanish, which Matt can understand a little but he couldn't understand everything I was saying, and yet he was able to trust me to accurately and lovingly present our side. And when I could no longer be the advocate because I had gotten too emotional to continue speaking coherently, I could put my faith in him to take over and communicate the rest in an accurate and loving way. And so, at the end of this tough battle that Satan had placed in our paths, we were able to give thanks and celebrate the fact that we were able to learn all of these things about ourselves, and to know that we were capable of handling great conflict in such a way. We don't always handle our personal conflicts in the most loving way, because we're not perfect. But we were able to handle this conflict with another party this week and were able to celebrate that at the end.

For Wednesday through Friday we both got to go camping in the mountains with the high schoolers that I teach. We all went to Spirit Mountain in Manabao, which is where the founders of Doulos own a big piece of land on which they also have a coffee plantation. I rode with the high schoolers and a few other teachers to the entrance of the property and then we all had to hike up. It was only a few kilometers but that was a lot for some of the students. Matt rode up with Darrell, a guy who works at Spirit Mountain, and they took the backpacks and gear up. Matt came to help out Darrell and the owner of the property with various things that chaperons needed help with to make the experience be what it was. I hiked at the back with the students who were struggling and it was a pretty awesome experience to be there to encourage them and see them find strength they didn't think they had and to also just take time going up to see and experience the cool wildlife on the mountain. I got to eat the sweet part of a coffee bean and see a flock of parrots flying closely overhead! We finally made it to the top and hung out and ate lunch for a little while and then did another hike to a really cool waterfall. I climbed on this huge rock that was part of it and slid down it with the force of the waterfall with some of my students and just got to explore for a little bit. I walked back in the pouring rain with some of the struggling students again and I don't think I warmed up from that until the next day! It was very cold up there (and I loved it-it almost felt like I was experiencing fall ;) ). We ate dinner and had a campfire at night. Matt spent that day setting up tents for the girls to sleep in and helping out with dinner and other general set-up things. Matt slept in his hammock under the guys cabin and I and the other women all slept in hammocks in and by the girls cabin. As cool of an idea as this seems, hammocks are most definitely not the most comfortable apparatus to sleep in!

The next morning after breakfast we headed out for repelling. This was the main reason Matt had come-we had very few people with us who knew much about it and he has had a lot of experience with it so he hiked out early with the owner to set it up and we met them out there later. It was crazy-the hike itself was very difficult for many students and then they had to repel down a giant rock cliff with only ropes holding them from falling. Amazingly, every single one of them did it, even though about 10 of them refused for a long time. Thankfully I did not have to do it because we just had enough time for the students to do it and I had to hike back to help set up the scavenger hunt that we had the students do after lunch. For those of you who don't know, I have once had a mini panic attack on a 6-foot ladder before; anything with ropes and climbing causes severe hyperventilation, crying, shaky legs that refuse to move and take much coaxing and disability to move for a little while at the end. For the sake of my students, I would have done that. But I am very glad I didn't have to :). We did the scavenger hunt in the afternoon and then had small group time. I was with the 10th grade girls and overall it went really well! Those girls are less willing to talk, but when they did this time, they were very genuine, which rarely happens so it was cool to see. After that we had dinner and then the guys made a fire. Matt spent the afternoon and well into the evening with a machete in hand clearing out the trails with Darrell.  The trails varied from deep jungle vines and rare palm trees to spiders the size of your hand and fallen trees.  He came back with many blisters, cuts and various bug bites and yet as happy as could be :). The fire this last night was incredible. Many students shared ways in which they have sought out and encountered God and it was so touching to see the ways in which they have experienced the love of Christ. Coming from students who, for some, were problem students the year before, who didn't care and didn't want to take ownership of their lives. It was a wonderful experience for all of them.

The next morning we got up early to eat breakfast and pack up and hike back-it was our last morning. Everything went pretty well in the morning and we hiked back down surprisingly fast-even those that were struggling and had to go slower. We got back way before Darrell and Matt did with our bags and the other people who stayed behind to pack up tents and food and clean everything up. All in all, it was a really great experience and we both were so glad that we got to go and do the things that we got to do. We also learned a lot about ourselves through this experience and what we are capable of and the ways in which we seek God in our own lives. This week was such a blessing and we move forward from here with a deeper perspective of why we're here.

Paradoxes

Another thing that I have been pondering this week is all of the paradoxes I have been experiencing in my time here.

Firstly, it’s so hard and I feel so drained so much of the time, and yet I am loving my time here. I’m so challenged here and it’s difficult knowing I’m being evaluated a lot of the time in something I’m obviously not going to be the best at since it takes years to become a highly effective teacher. Having that constant pressure is not something that I’m very used to or good at handling in all honesty (good thing I ruled out being a surgeon or ER doctor, huh? ;) ). But on the flip side, I love being here. I’m learning and growing a ton and it’s exciting to feel like I’m really doing something again. It’s exciting to feel that growth. I’m loving my interactions with students, even on days when I have to constantly remind them to focus for one more minute and on days when they are so bored or really don’t care about what we have to tell them today. I love the people I work with and they have been such an encouragement in my life, even without knowing all of the different struggles that I face or have faced before. It takes a lot out of me and I get frustrated and challenged by things that are different in the DR that only add to the stresses of student teaching, but I haven’t felt this healthy or this whole in a very, very long time, and I am completely surrounded by the beauty of the mountains. For these reasons and many more, I am so happy to be here.

Secondly is the paradox that is probably most difficult to explain and sort of related to the first. It is the paradox of days where really good things happen and my mind and heart are still in a raging battle against negativity and days where I don’t feel like everything was put together and yet somehow find that genuine joy comes easily. Some of my days here are hard and some are better, but most days, in all honesty, have dramatic elements of both of those things. An example of this would be the day that I first took over Geometry. I was so nervous about this class and thought that it was going to go very poorly but it actually went really well. And then my Algebra review went really well. So I went into lunch with a really great feeling. And then in all of my planning time I was so caught up with details and this and that and found myself really behind in my lesson planning and started to get really nervous about that and have been behind all week since. So all week I have felt really great after a lesson gone well and then dramatically overcome with stress about my lesson planning. It is a strange situation. Days themselves are not usually just good or just bad days anymore. They are usually fully both of those things. Although, as I said in the first paradox, overall I am still so glad that I am here and even the bad is good in a way.

Thirdly and perhaps the paradox most present to me at this time, I have been experiencing this strange dichotomy where I am so happy to be here and yet miss home so much. I haven’t once regretted my decision to come here, and I have had such an incredible time thus far and am excited to keep growing. But once again, my time away from home is a blatant reminder of all of the people that I care so much about. I begin to miss people that maybe I’m not even great at keeping in touch with when I am home. I begin to miss places and things that I never even gave much thought to before. I have been missing so much the signs of fall in my time here. I didn’t even know that was possible for me. Fall has always been my very least season, yes, even more so than winter. In most of my gradeschool years I experienced a great depression that came with the signs of fall. But now that I have worked through much of that, I crave the leaves crunching below my feet and the brisk air and the pumpkin pie and the warm lattes shared between friends that bring life to the whole body and the busy apple orchards and the fall activities at Hope.  I miss all of my friends and family-I miss reconnecting with friends not seen over the summer and spending lat nights studying with friends in my class and weekends spent at home in the company of my parents and my sisters, going on walks with them through the park and looking for any remaining surprise plants to pop and going out to dinner as the sun sets sooner and going for one last icecream cone and snuggling under one of my Mom’s amazing afghans that somehow still fit over all of us across both couches and keep us really warm despite all of the holes in an afghan to watch a chick flick over a cup of hot tea or hot cocoa. My time here so far has reminded me to never once take for granted a moment that is shared with someone else and to not once pass up an opportunity to have those moments when they present themselves and to not allow the busyness of life to get in the way of a good conversation with a good friend for too long. I’m so happy to be here and share good times with the people God has brought to my life in this season, but I also miss my gente (my people) from home so much. These are tough desires to reconcile for me-my desire to travel and be here and experience all of the learning and growth that I experience here, and my love for my family and friends and church home, the sense of security and peace and comfort that I find there and the precious time spent with those that I love.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

                                                                                                                2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Eye on the Prize

Well things have started to sink back into rhythm (well, as much as they do in the Dominican Republic-can lack of rhythm become part of a rhythm?).  I am now officially teaching two classes and feeling scatterbrained and harried as ever. I had invested in a little notebook a while ago to make notes to myself to remember throughout the day, and that has helped immensely, but even with that, I often forget to put the notes in the notebook!

I’m trying very hard to not confuse my self-worth with how well I teach or how much of my to-do list I cross off on a given day. It’s a tough thing to unlearn, and a very American thing to do, but it is most definitely worth it to work after.  I don’t think it’s bad to have goals or lists, but I don’t want to be governed by them any longer, for they are not my Master. I’ve been thinking a lot this week how getting caught up in those things and my pride interferes with a lot of things that are important to me-relationships with my students, relationships with other people, having a thankful heart before the Lord and others, using my time wisely, and fully taking advantage of my time here, to name a few. As I have been reading through 1 Kings and reading about the life of Solomon, I have been praying for wisdom in this area and wisdom in general, because it's certainly not something I can fix on my own. 

Matt has been such a blessing as I work in this. He always reminds me that I’m worth more than my lists. He keeps me in check when I’m starting to define myself by the standards of the world-and he lets me get it out and process through it when I need to do that. And to make sure I am still taking joy in the other things in life we make it a point to set aside time to do things like runs (and walks :) ) through the mountains and by the rivers and going to restaurants we enjoy and spending time with the families we are living with. Time spent doing those things have become a precious reminder and time of refreshment to me as well, along with jealously guarding the time that I spend in the Word each day. It’s not always easy to make time for those things when I’m so tired out from everything else, but they always bring more joy and nourishment to my soul.

I also have a really great community here at Doulos of people who are always checking in with each other because they really want to know how things are going. And we are always reminding each other that it’s about more than what we accomplish or perform. It has been so great to be part of a community that does that for one another-that keeps each other focused on what we’re here for and Who we are serving.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” 

                                                                                                                 -I Corinthians 9:24-27

The End of the World

Wow it has been several weeks since an update and the time is flying by! I have fully taken over the Algebra 2 class and have been teaching that for a few weeks now. It has been going well overall and it was kind of fun to take over a class! But is also challenging. Next week I am adding on Geometry, which is a fun class but also a much bigger class with a wider range of needs. I’ve been going a little bit crazy as I begin to plan and prepare for teaching that class. This week was a week of feeling entirely inadequate, a week of many tears and frazzled moments, a week of seriously questioning whether I have the wherewithal to pursue this as a career, and a week of much growth and learning. I hear that the transition from one class to two classes is the most difficult and that upon adding on the next two I will not feel quite so much stress. I reallyyyyy hope that’s the case. On the plus side, I can now write lesson plans MUCH more efficiently and I am gaining more confidence in my interactions with students. I’m learning a lot about my teaching style and my preferences on the various aspects inside the classroom. I am building relationships with students more and more every day. I’ll get there yet, I hope :)

Matt arrived here a week ago and that has been such a blessing! I feel bad that his first week here has been one of my more stressful and agitated weeks, but he is adjusting well and has been supporting and encouraging as always :) I am so grateful to have him here, especially at a point in which I am missing home more than ever.

His time here has held a fair amount of excitement already. The day after his arrival and the day he was supposed to move into his host home we were out to lunch at a restaurant and it began raining. Pouring rain is annoying when you don’t have a vehicle but nothing too bad. The restaurant was close to my host family’s house so at least we could make a break for it at some point and seek shelter there when we were done eating, even though all of his stuff was at a friend’s house. So we continued eating our lunch, hoping that maybe the rain would let up eventually as it often does. Sadly, it only began to increase with time, along with the wind. The restaurant has a whole wall that is open and the water was beginning to enter and soak those near the outside, so they shut the screens to keep it out. After a while the screens weren’t enough and they had to shut the gates they use to lock it up. There was no way we were going anywhere anytime soon, we thought. Then, it began to hail. I am not kidding. Matt’s first full day on a tropical island and it is hailing. First just little stones. I barely even realized it was hailing at first because it was not even in my mind’s realm of possibilities that it was hailing here so I thought that it was just raining harder. But eventually someone noticed that little balls of ice were falling from the sky. And they weren’t little anymore. They were growing. They grew from golf ball-sized pieces of hail to tennis ball-sized pieces of hail. Some people were gleefully proclaiming this to be the end of the world! The biggest hail I have ever seen in my whole life and it happened while we were in the Caribbean. It was so strange.

Once the hail stopped and the rain was reasonable enough to make a break for it we went back to my house. Then it slowed enough to go back to our friends’ house. They had no power so we just hung out and figured out the details for getting over to his host family’s home. We watched the rain falling and watched mini explosions erupt from the telephone pole occasionally, nearly catching itself on fire. All in all, it was quite the eventful day. Eventually he made it to his home and has enjoyed his time there with his family. They are very sweet, welcoming people and we’re excited to see what the rest of our time here holds!

Gracias a Dios

Hey folks. It's about that time when cultural stress starts to hit. I've been here for a month, so I'm right on schedule. The last two weeks have been a little difficult, living in a culture that is not the one that I've known. There's a lot of truth to what I said before about trusting God and that it's better to be okay with not being to go where you want when you want, but that's not always my reality. Sometimes I still am really frustrated with things here, and it's exhausting to deal with those stressors. People call to me and stare at other people (including myself) everywhere I go, power and internet are unstable things in my house, and the Spanish hadn't been rolling off my tongue as naturally as it usually does. So, I am taking a leaf out of a friend's book and I am deciding that it's time to start looking on the bright side and being thankful for what I do have to maintain a positive attitude and a thankful heart. So here is a small list of the things I am thankful for:

1. God is good. He's gotten me this far-more than sufficient proof that He will continue to carry me through.
2. I receive love and encouragement and support daily from this guy (I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend...and that he's coming here in 2 weeks!!):

3. And these lovely people:

4. And these lovely people (among others) (sorry for just stealing your picture Steph :) you're beautiful) :

5. I live in the mountains now. The beauty is breath-taking.
6. The community that I've become a part of is incredible and so supportive.

7. My students are amazing and so much fun to have.
8. I get to do fun things with math every day. (cue name-calling ;) #hatersgonnahate )
9. The coffee here is divine.
10. Mango. (and fresh fruit in general)
11. Moto rides are pretty fun.
12. I get a cold shower every hot day.
13. I have internet in my house.
14. I get Dominican food made for me every day.
15. Spending time in the Word has been so natural and enjoyable to me lately.
16. I have a great group of people to work out with and even enjoy it!
17. When you kill a couple ants in your vicinity the others somehow sense it and disappear faster than they arrived.
18. I get to watch Gilmore Girls with my friend Katie all the time and it's awesome.
19. I have a fan.
20. I have less stuff and less space so my organizational skills have improved dramatically!
21. The day my backpack broke for good was the same day that a brand new, awesome one arrived (they're hard to find here when it's not the time right before school starts and Minerva got a shipment of clothes to sell that same day and magically had a backpack in that shipment!)
22. I have an awesome Bible study here that's one of the highlights of my week.
23. The buildings are so colorful.
24. It's always green here.
25. The school campus is gorgeous.
26. Coke has real sugar here.
27. I have a great relationship with my host mom.
28. I live in a safe place and have a lot of people to look after me.
29. Pizza and brownies.
30. I get to hang out with my students outside of school and have movie and cookie/brownie nights with them.
31. I sit on my second-story porch lots of times to work on things.
32. I have markers and colored pens.
33. I get to speak and listen to Spanish every day.
34. Butterflies.
35. Bachata (i.e. Prince Royce).
36. The mornings and evenings are cool here in the mountains.
37. The monkey that I pass every day on my way home from school.
38. God provided money that wasn't there for me to be here and move back with a little bit left.
39. I haven't felt this healthy or whole or strong in a very long time.
40. God is always with me, guiding me, protecting me, and giving me strength.

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever." -Psalm 118:1

Así van las cosas

Sometimes in this country, things don't always go as planned. Sometimes the lights go out before I've saved my work and since my charger has stopped working for my computer it shuts off in a split second. Sometimes the power goes out for hours when I have a ton of work to do on my computer. This happened yesterday since it was pouring. I got a little extra time to spend with Jesus and a nap in the pouring rain. It wasn’t so bad I suppose :) An advertisement that I have seen at gas stations here is, I’m not kidding, “Siempre hay gas”-we always have gas. Why, you may ask? Because sometimes gas stations just run out of gas. Sometimes you’re running really low and have just enough to make it to the gas station-just to find out that they’ve run out for today. And then you have to rely on a friend to bring some to you.  

I have been finding this to be very true in the classroom as well. One morning Brad and I got to school at 6:45 as per usual to get ready for our 7am class which is AP Calc, Pre-Calculus, and Foundations of Math all in the same class. The printer wasn't working and we had quizzes to print out for some of our Foundations students. The mini computers for the rest of our Foundations students were not left in the library like they were supposed to and were locked up until the rest of the staff arrived at 7:45 when our class was almost done. Most days there are issues with some of the videos they are supposed to be using on Khan academy (probably due to the connection). We have to improvise and make do with what we have. Almost every day feels a bit like a juggling act that we somehow perform daily. And you know what? It works. The students learn things-things that they are supposed to on a given day-and they are all receiving the individualized instruction that they need. 

Sometimes you have a really fun lesson planned one day and you get there and you know what? Your students just aren’t in the mood today. They just want to be lectured at and don’t want to have fun. Sometimes what you thought you planned out really well, you didn’t.

And so goes life. We like to think we have control over things. We like to think that we can get anywhere we want when we want, that we can have access to whatever we want when we want, that we have control over the simple everyday tasks. Then our car breaks down or thunderstorms during our tubing adventure or our flight is delayed and we miss the only connecting one going out that day and we’re suddenly reminded that we don’t have quite as much control as we think we did. These circumstances are unfortunate and annoying and at times costly, but they can create some of the best memories. They put us in our place and remind us of our dependence on God. And this unpredictability of life has been teaching me so much, beginning with my lost passport before I came and continuing on throughout a lot of my experiences here.

It’s a little bit contradictory to the other important things I’ve been learning-such as how to plan ahead for lessons (a very difficult feat for someone like me) and how to maintain sanity and organization in a chaotic world (a book that I have been reading through to help myself grow in this area) and I don’t want to discount the importance that learning how to plan and organize holds on my time here, I just am constantly reminded throughout my efforts that it’s ultimately left up to God’s will and that I need to leave more room for His speaking into my life.  

Que sueñes con los angelitos...

On top of our math classes Brad and I are also teaching another class on MWF with the 10^th graders. On Mondays we have what’s called Crew and Wednesdays/Fridays we have a Devotions class.  The idea behind Crew is that we are all members of the Crew-we are not passengers. We work as a team, we are active participants in our work and in our lives, and we don’t just sit back and let things slide by.

Today, our theme for Crew was dreams. Last week we asked them to think about what they would do with their lives if neither money nor other people’s expectations were a factor. This week they all went around and shared their dreams. It was a beautiful thing. How often do we let kids dream? How often do we ask them to do that? How often do we ourselves dream? Often times we find that we’ve forgotten how. These students have beautiful dreams-maybe it was just the delay in the caffeine reaching my bloodstream but I started to tear up a little bit as I heard them. They want to be forensic scientists and doctors and NBA players and PE teachers and business owners and mountain climbers. It’s beautiful. These are big dreams for these kids. Some of them grew up knowing what it was like to dream but many of them never even dreamed of making it to college. Even now, many of them are going to have to really fight to make it. They have to work hard, be really good at something that they can get a scholarship for and fund-raise their way there. Many of them do make it there. Some stay here.

Since we know that asking them to dare to dream may be a dangerous thing, we help them come up with a plan. Once they spoke their dreams aloud, we said “Great! Now let’s make a plan for when and how you’re going to achieve this goal.” They wrote out three things they would have to do during college to reach their goal. Then three things they would have to do during high school to reach their goal. Then three things to do this year at Doulos to reach their goal. And finally, three things to do this semester to help them work towards their goal. This seemed like such a crucial part to me. Being capable of imagining a dream is half the battle but it does nothing as a coin thrown in the fountain.

Many of us have already achieved the dreams of these students. We are doctors and scientists and business owners and teachers and now what? What’s our next dream? Why did we want to be that in the first place? Is it still our dream? Are we accomplishing what we wanted to do? Can we do it better?

Ahora te pregunto, now I ask you…if neither money nor the expectations of anyone else were a factor, what would you do? 

Teacher Love

I am almost done with week number 2 in the classroom! Time has been flying here, but it has been so great. I really couldn’t ask for a better mentor teacher or better students to learn how to teach with

.

I went to a Christian concert at the school on Saturday night which was so cool and then went to another concert (Christine D’Clario, big Christian artist in the Caribbean) in Santiago on Sunday night after church (a different church that is much more typical of the types of churches that I tend towards). The concert started at 8 and Santiago is like 40 minutes away. It was an incredible night of praise and worship and her testimony really resounded with me. I had such a great time going with some of my new girl friends. Unfortunately, I have to be at school at 6:45 in the morning to start teaching a 7am class while the vast majority of the rest of the school (including the women I was with) don’t have to arrive until 7:45. So, with very little sleep I started school on Monday and had a wonderful day. I thought that I would be so dead the whole day but I found energy that was not my own. The students were so great on Monday and reminded me of why I’m here. It’s a really cliché thing to say, get all of your boo’s and awwww’s out now, but they’re really great and make it worth getting up every day.

I have led smaller parts and helped out with group work before but today was my first day teaching a significant part of a lesson. It went really well! Much better than I expected for my first lesson. I didn’t make some of the biggest mistakes that I usually make and it felt like it went really well. And Brad was incredibly encouraging afterward so that was good to hear. I’m so excited to get to start doing more and more in the classroom! I’m so thankful for the grace that my students have shown me thus far as I learn how to teach and as I’m taking over instructional time that they would otherwise have with their favorite teacher.  :)

Overwhelmed by the Spirit

Since I haven’t written in awhile and what I have to say is long and covers pretty unrelated topics, I am splitting today’s into two. This first one tells a story (at times…er…embellished appropriately) of an experience I had a couple of weeks ago:

Two Sundays ago I decided to go to church with my host mom. We had had a real heart to heart in the morning, I had lost my phone at this point so I couldn’t contact anyone as to where exactly the church I planned on going to was, and it seemed like it could be a great cultural experience. It was.

She warned me ahead of time that it was Pentecostal church and not her normal church. It’s her husband’s church but she’s been having issues at hers so we decided to try it out. She knew that we were in for quite the experience. The service lasted for 13 hours (embellishment-it was probably like 3 hours, which in retrospect is not as long as it could’ve been). We walked in and we were the only women there wearing pants instead of a dress or skirt. Oh the scandal that we must have brought to the church. I felt instant shame. The women were on one side and the men on the other side. If this wasn’t going to be a bonding experience with Minerva I don’t know what would be…

 The church building was the size of a large bedroom or a small classroom. Nonetheless, the members had evidently invested in or stumbled upon three speakers, all roughly the size of a small skyscraper (embellishment). What’s more, they were so incredibly invested in the gospel that they shouted it into this little microphone that carried a great deal of sound through the towering speakers right to the pulse in my eardrum. It made women fall to the ground and weep for Jesus and children fall to the ground screaming and covering their ears (embellishment-the women part, not the children part). I kind of wanted to be a child at this point. It terrified me to, kiddo, me too.

 At the end the preacher called out the newbies to bless them and pray over them. It mattered not that Minerva and I were already Christians. We, too, had to be saved and fully accept the presence of God that we had not accepted previously. A woman put one hand over my my breast and the other on one side of my face as her cheek touched mine and prayed very passionately over my heart. I didn’t speak in tongues or feel any different…besides the discomfort that this white girl felt from the proximity to another unknown person that I was experiencing at the moment. Plus she was talking so darn fast and it was so loud around us and I caught only like three quarters of what she was even saying anyway. The breath of fresh air that I took when we finally made it out of that building was extravagant and the wordless look exchanged between my host mother of two days and me priceless. I have never had a dull experience at a Pentecostal church and I must say that I do really admire the truth that they spoke and the fervor with which they followed the Lord. But I can say that rarely has fresh air felt so sweet. 

New Beginnings

                My first week and a half here has been fabulous. The community at my school, Doulos Discovery School is incredible. As I have often bemoaned, even simple, day-today challenges that people face can be so much more difficult and draining when abroad, and the staff here are so committed to being that support for each other and showing grace to one another in any way possible. I very much miss everyone from home, but I have spent little time feeling lonely because of the strength of the community. Jarabacoa is also a really nice place and quite different from Santiago!! It’s been a bit of an easier transition that I had expected-the town is much calmer, which means that it’s not as easy to get anywhere you want to go but I’m surrounded by beauty and seeing a gringo isn’t such a rarity here so even though I’m still one of the tallest and blondest women here I don’t stick out quite as much (except in my house or when I do stuff with my host family, in which case I get the blessing of being the minority once again-a reminder of the diversity that I come to crave when I’m away for it for too long).

For the first week I stayed with two different couples that are on staff at Doulos and they hosted me with so much grace and I had a wonderful time. I am certainly glad to finally have (mostly) unpacked my suitcase and have a little space of my own now that I’ve arrived at my homestay.  It’s a tiny little house with a lot of people. It’s an adjustment getting used to freezing cold showers again and ants getting in everything but it’s a place filled with a lot of love.

We had our first day of “school” today. For the high schoolers, it was a retreat to the Young Life camp, Pico Escondido. I got to go on that and it was a lot of fun! We played some games, praised Jesus, ate and just spent some good time with the students. It was a little intimidating to just be thrown into such an informal setting the first day with my students, but it was fun and a nice way to ease into the school year for them!

The school is really small-there are about 250 students in Pre-K through 12^th grade so each grade has only one class. I am teaching 10^th-12^th grade Math, which is Geometry, Advanced Algebra and then a split class of Pre-Calculus and a more basic, Algebra-skill-boosting class. The general format for the core classes like Math is that we teach all morning, have lunch from 12:30-1:00 and then have the afternoon to plan. This is really nice for me because having so many preps is going to be a challenge in my student teaching!

My cooperating teacher is so great. I was a little nervous about having a guy at first, I must admit, but he is going to be a really great teacher to learn from. From what I’ve gathered so far from student reactions and what other teachers have said, he is the favorite teacher in high school. He’s a lot of fun and a really laid back guy but still really challenges his students and has high expectations. That’s the kind of teacher I’ve identified myself as and am really excited to learn from him how to balance those things, because it’s a tough role to play! This demeanor is also really going to help me in my student teaching experience and he’s already shown himself an advocate for me, whether in allowing me to try new things that might fail or in defending my time and protecting me from the other desperate teachers who need this document translated or another volunteer for X,Y and Z (it’s a really busy place with a lot of needs and a lot of great places to jump in and help). I know that he wants me to succeed and is very encouraging.

I’m so excited to see what this semester holds. I have already grown so much through this transition, even despite my fear that I wasn’t strong enough for it. I know that it’s going to be a very challenging semester, but I also know that I’m going to grow a lot. I’ve come here to learn and be challenged, but I also think that God brought me here to heal.

I've likely forgotten to mention some details that you may have questions about, so please feel free to ask about anything you would like to know more about!

La Llegada

I have made it safe and sound to Jarabacoa. I got in the airport at about 9:20, got my bags, found my school director and his wife, and got to their house by about 10:45. Today I spent the day in the classroom setting stuff up with my cooperating teacher, meeting other teachers, taking care of some details, etc. So far I am so in love with the community at Doulos and am so excited for my time here! Everyone has been incredibly kind and helpful and inclusive. The campus is gorgeous and I feel like this is a perfect place for me to be at.

My adventures for this trip, however, began a little bit sooner than expected. I committed a bit of an oversight this past week and a half-I hadn’t seen my passport and it never really occurred to me to look for it. It’s always there somewhere. And I had it in my car 3 weeks ago. Monday night I went to go get it from the place in my room that I always keep it and it wasn’t there…or in the 3 or 4 other places it could have possibly been. With a weeks’ worth of nightmares of various things going wrong in my travels swirling around in my head along with all of the mounting anxiety of the last week (or couple months), my stress level climaxed and full-fledged panic ensued. My parents, Matt, my sisters and I all began to tear apart the house, ransacking every nook and cranny. No luck. It was nowhere to be found. I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes in my time, but this topped them all and I had no idea where to go next. Do I keep looking? Do I look into getting another one?

I called an automated appointment system to try and set up an appointment ASAP in either Chicago or Detroit to get a new passport same day. The earliest dates were the 12^th and the 13^th at those offices. I was supposed to leave the 7^th. We continued searching places we had already checked 3 times over. My dad, the voice of reason, finally decided that we should just call and talk to someone in the Chicago office first thing in the morning.

So I got up the next morning, reported my passport as lost (which was scary because then even if I found it after that, I wouldn’t ever be able to use it) and then got transferred to an appointment specialist. She took my information and told me that she would send in a request to the Chicago office. At first she made it sound like there was no chance I would be getting in today yet, but then I asked how soon I would be able to know when I could get an appointment because I would need to change my flight accordingly and she said that hopefully they would call that day to let me know. I thanked her and hung up, still really unsure of what to do. I called my school director’s house to let him know what was going on and decided to just take a shower and then keep packing and getting everything ready to get a new passport so I could go right when they called me. I didn’t have to wait long. 1 minute out of the shower my dad called me over because he was talking to the airline to ask about the costs of changing my flight ($200 at least for each change) and my phone rang. It was the Chicago passport office calling me to let me know that if I could make it there by noon-12:30-at-the-very-latest then I could get my passport today. It was currently 9:15 and I was in a towel without any of the things gathered that I needed. I quickly changed and ran to Walgreen’s to get a passport picture as my dad sent forms to my mom to print out an drive home (our printer isn’t working well) and gathered the things I needed like my birth certificate. We got everything together and were off by 10 (thankfully Chicago is an hour behind). Nonetheless, we had very little wiggle room for traffic delays (which have happened every single time I’ve travelled to and from Bloomington-Normal this summer).

I never would have dreamed that I would lose my passport. Who does that? Apparently a lot of people. There was quite a line when we arrived to the office at 12 on the dot. As I waited in line I heard a few people say that they were trying to get passports to leave the country that same afternoon. I waited in line for 45 minutes, then got a number to put in my request. I waited about 10 more minutes, then got my request in and she said that hopefully they would get it in today yet. My dad and I, a little shell-shocked with our newfound relief of pressure kind of wandered around for a bit and then decided to go get lunch at a German café he had heard about. We wandered to the outside of Millennium Park after that, and then decided to head back to see if my passport was done.

With 30 minutes until the building closed, I was handed my new passport!

God is good. As are my parents and Matt, without whom I definitely would not have gotten on that plane in time.

When I finally made it back home, I ate dinner quickly and then began packing with Matt’s help. Or maybe he was packing with my help (he’s much more efficient with space). We got done at about 1:00am with everything. Then woke up at 3:30am to get ready and head off to catch my plane from Grand Rapids. I was travelling all day, with an 8 hour layover in Miami and snuck in a few short naps throughout.  I also ended up sitting next to and meeting a guy who works for a church just down the street from Doulos, so he helped me with a lot of traveling things and told me more about the city. It was wonderful to have the company on the trip, especially in the state that I was in!

Our flight to Santiago was delayed for about 40 minutes so I got in late but unbelievably, I made it despite all of the big obstacles! Life is crazy and miracles do still happen. And as my dad reminded me on our drive home, you never know what the day may bring (and don’t beat yourself up if you lose your passport because there are a ton of lost passports out there…).

The whole passport ordeal really made me question my self-proclamation as an adventure-lover. This was one adventure I could do without, I thought. It also really made me question why someone like me should be allowed to travel independently to another country in a kind of remote place. I had serious doubts about myself. And I was hoping for a clear reason as to why I lost my passport so that it wouldn't just be because I am scattered :) But nothing dramatic happened: I didn’t have to change my flight only to realize that a plane I was supposed to be on crashed, I didn’t meet any life-changing people because of it and I’m still out $200. But it did remind me that I need to trust God. He carried me through the whole process by using my amazingly supportive family and boyfriend and a very kind stranger. He took care of me and made possible the unbelievable. I’m still scared for all that this semester will hold and what I should do after it, but I know that He will carry me through and that everything will be alright. I just need a little more faith and trust sometimes. 

Transitions

Well folks, over a year has passed and here I go again into the world of motoconchos, fried everything, tiny coffee mugs, Spanish, dancing, Caribbean heat and the most adorable children you ever did see. But this time I’m going to play the teacher instead of the student.

I was basically fearless going into my first long-term adventure into this beautiful country. I had much more to lose than I realized, but I just felt like I was ready to get out of this place and go somewhere new, breathe some Caribbean air, experience a new culture, embody a new culture. I was ambitious, yes, and took much for granted. My life was not in a great state at this point. I didn’t think I had much to lose, and thought that it would only make me stronger. Well, it definitely did, but maybe not in the way that I had planned. God had a different plan, as he sometimes does.

As I continue to prepare myself for my departure,  even while my heart and mind (and body) are here in Bloomington-Normal with my research group and the lovely little life I have made for myself here this summer, I cannot help but to feel pretty apprehensive. I’m already wondering what came over me when I decided to do this. I am fully assured that it was written in God’s plan for me, and that’s why he made the application deadline when He did, because if I would have known how it would feel now, I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to follow through with it. I love this country with all of my heart, but all of my heart also stays home, with family and friends and the love of my life. I also know what I’m getting into this time around a little bit better. I am so excited for all of the beautiful parts of this country and can’t wait feel home again in the part of my heart that remains there. But I also know the demons that plague in the loneliness and stress that comes with being in a new place away from what I’ve known my whole life. And I’m not too proud to admit this time around that I am certainly not strong enough to face them alone. But I have been redeemed enough to know that God is strong in my weakness and that encouragement is available for the weary and downtrodden who seek it.

So it is with great excitement, trembling and humility that I begin this journey, and I humbly ask for your prayers as I go on this journey. The director of the school in which I will be teaching (Doulos Discovery School) urges me to regard myself as a missionary in this experience. It is a missions’ school that I will be teaching at, and all teachers at the school raise their own full support. Again, had I know then that I was committing myself to such a position, I know I would not have had the strength or courage to accept the call of missions. I do not feel prepared to be in that position, but I once again trust fully that God knew exactly what He was doing and my prayer is that He uses me as He sees fit in my time at Doulos.

I humbly request your continued prayers as I embark on this journey, that God protects me from harm and temptation, from the demons that persist, from the doubt that invades, the depression that paralyzes, and the fall to which we are all inclined, and that in the times in which these things prevail that I may persist in the faith and the hope that God provides, that I may pass through those times and God may continue to use me to further His kingdom. I am already overwhelmed and encouraged by the outpouring of love and support that has been shown me by my faith community and feel so blessed to be a part of it. I can’t wait to see where this new adventure takes me.

Haiti and issues of race.

In continuation of my last post, perhaps what needs to happen are some movements within Haiti. I experienced one of these a couple of weekends ago. Some of my friends from PUCMM are Haitian and are involved in starting up a company that is working to promote tourism in Haiti. Yes, they have the job because they need the money, like every college student (trust me, I’ve seen their apartment-a couch or two wouldn’t hurt them :P). But they all decided to put so much work into this company to bring people into Haiti. They are educated men-they know what people outside of the country think about Haiti. They have also come to the DR and seen how much tourism has helped out this country’s economy (…more or less-the problem with tourism is that it’s an unstable sort of income that is susceptible to the economy of other countries and to natural disasters everywhere…but still.). They want to improve their own country by working hard to get people to come to Haiti to just see what it is like. Haiti is such a beautiful country and if people could just see that, they would want to come. Well, we went. And it was an adventure for sure…

First off, let me just say that our guides are from the south and we went to Cap-Haitian in the North, where they had never been before. The guy who started it lives in Miami now so he told them where he’s been going for the last few years and they went off of that. We were definitely safe with them and we so appreciate the work that they did for us and the friendships we have built with them. Nothing that happened was in any way their fault, and they remedied every situation the best that they could. That being said, it wasn’t that bad I just feel the need to add a disclaimer haha. You will understand if you choose to read on…

First, crossing the border. So this is how it works: you go through immigration/emigration on the DR side, cross a bridge that also serves as a market so it is crawling with people, and go through immigration/emigration on the Haiti side. On the bridge, 5 minutes into Haiti, one of my friends had her camera stolen right out of her hand. There was this huge ordeal because a guy there was pretending to be with immigration and he was not. So he was asking for our passports and for some money and our guides knew better than to give it to him so a fight broke out (in Creole, mind you; none of us knew what was going on until after all of this had passed). Finally we pacified him by letting him check our passports and we went on our merry way. But in the confusion, my friend’s camera was incredibly stolen right out of her hand and she didn’t even notice until after the fact. Crazy. Sooo we made it eventually. We were stopped a lot along the road to Cap-Haitian to have our passports checked. A van full of white people draws attention in the DR but it draws 10 times more attention in Haiti. Most of them were good cops, some were a little rude and intimidating but none of them were really bad. The scary thing was just not really knowing.

Next comes the hotel. The guys had to pay in advance to get this hotel so they couldn’t change it without us having to pay more. So we decided to tough it out for 4 days. “Tough it out” means that one time there was running water and we got showers (over days of trekking through incredible heat). It means that the air didn’t work most nights. It means that there were bed bugs and we had bites all over our bodies (but that’s not as bad as it sounds, because thankfully bug bites don’t really itch, they just look bad). It means that there were tons of mosquitoes. It means the toilet didn’t flush most of the time. And that there was one lightbulb in the whole room, and at night we couldn’t have the fans on and the light off at the same time. It was rough. Thankfully they found another, much nicer hotel while we were there that they can use for the rest of the trips.

When we finally got settled in to our hotel after arriving we went to some beautiful fortress ruins by a beautiful beach. We spent some time just hiking around and exploring. Nearby was the other, much nicer hotel so we spent some time exploring that and just sitting on the patio watching the waves roll in. We came back content but sweaty after hiking around in the Haitian heat...to find no water for showers :) So we went out to eat as we were and enjoyed a dinner without a time schedule: eating, talking, laughing, sharing, and dancing on the patio.

The next day was a little bit rougher. We went to the citadel, which was built during the Haitian revolution. We had the option of taking a horse up to the top of the mountain, but thought it would only take about an hour to make the trek so most of us declined, with one exception. As soon as we began the climb we were surrounded by a hoard of people yelling and pushing and pulling us to try and convince us to pay them to take us up the mountains on their horses. It was so hot and confusing (it was hard to tell what language they were speaking to us a lot of the time and we kept getting separated from each other) that a few other people gave in and mounted horses pretty shortly thereafter. Being prideful, without a single goude or peso on my body, and a little wary of the strangers pushing and pulling us all over the place, I continued on with many of my friends. But it was HOT. So much hotter than in the DR (not really sure why, it’s not that big of an island, I’m not sure how there was such a drastic weather difference hah). And it was rough going. And I have no idea how long we were walking but we eventually learned that it was 7 kilometers to the top. Which is just shy of 4 and a half miles. Which would take almost an hour to walk if you were power walking on flat land, not climbing a mountain. Finally, after we were about half way up (I was walking with my friend Tyler) we caved and Tyler paid for horses for him and me with barely enough money for two of us to get a horse the rest of the way up. It was a physical relief but not an emotional one! The horse kept slipping on the rocks and I could feel it was even more tired than I was. But, we finally made it up the mountain. And I think it was worth it in the end. The Citadel and the view from the top were more beautiful than words could possibly describe. We walked around to see the views and we walked through the fort. We got to see the canons that pointed through every window and went on the rooftop where the men would do their workouts. The view from there was breathtaking. After spending some time exploring we made our trek back down. Some of us had paid for a horse up and down, but those of us who hadn’t decided to walk down and just stick together more this time. Then a friend and I decided it would be fun to run wildly down like children. My shins didn’t think it was so fun. But the rest of me did and neither of us wiped out! And we got off that mountain faster, so I would say it was worth it ;) We got to the bottom faster than everyone except the people who took horses down and sat next to a tantalizing mini-waterfall, dripping in sweat. The children were playing naked in the pool. It was really tempting to jump in with them. If only running around naked was still acceptable in this world…But anyway, everyone else eventually made it down and we continued. We couldn’t go back the way we had come because it was closed for some reason so we had to go the long way around, naturally. We finally got back, walked to find a tap-tap (this is what they call Haiti’s version of guaguitas-except they’re really just like trucks with tarp over the back so everyone sits in the bed of the truck and you tap twice when you want out-hence, they call them tap-taps) and made it back to the hotel…to find that se fue el agua otra vez (there was no water. still.).  Our guides went down and exchanged some creolian words with the man downstairs and eventually there came some water. We decided to group shower por si acaso (just in case), which was a good idea, since it went pretty shortly after it came. We got ready and went out to dinner, where I tried Creole sauce, which is super spicy and I am not a fan. We got back exhausted, but it was okay because the next day was a beach day!!

            To get to the beach the next day we all hopped in the back of a truck that was uncovered. This wouldn’t matter except for the fact that we barely fit and started out almost falling out and then were twisting and turning through mountain roads hah. But we made it unscathed and got on a yola to glide through some of the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen (including all of the other Caribbean beaches I had the fortune to visit!). It was gorgeous. We got to this little beach that was carved out of the mountainy forest surrounding it and there we would pass the entire day. We ate lobster and crab and all sorts of good things for lunch. We explored the coast and found starfish and more sea urchins. We drank milk out of coconuts. It was a beautiful day spent with beautiful people. Timeless beauty. A little piece of heaven in the ordinariness of life.   

            We took our yola back and got back in the truck and precariously made our way back once again. We got ready (with or without water this time, I can’t remember for sure but I think what had happened is that we had filled up water bottles so we didn’t have water but we bathed with the water we had saved) and went out to our last dinner together. It was a great time.

The next morning we made our way back in the guaguita and had to pass through customs again. Then, we had to cross the bridge again. The same man was there. And he remembered us. It was trouble right from the get-go. He came right to Josh, the most hot-headed of our fearless leaders, and began pushing him as soon as he refused to hand over our passports or money. Clement and Soumaho, the other two, were holding Josh back and people were beginning to swarm around us, all speaking a language we don’t know. I felt okay while Clement and Soumaho were holding him back, because the situation seemed mostly under control. And then Soumaho and Clement joined in. This is when I got scared. They are quite level-headed, peace-making men. They don’t want to cause problems. I felt that the situation had lost control when they had no choice but to try and defend themselves and everyone else involved. Finally, after standing by and watching and laughing this whole time, the Argentineans from the UN stepped in and let us through after checking our passports. Which brings me to another sidenote: The UN in Haiti is virtually useless. We were told and witnessed on various occasions that it’s like these people are on vacation. They just sort of hang out and go to the beach and nobody’s there to tell them to do any different. It was quite aggravating. But fortunately, the ones at the border stepped in eventually and we made it across the bridge and through customs on the DR side and onto our guaguita to go home. We eventually made it and all got in wonderful, coveted showers and enjoyed traveling through a country in which there is (almost) always toilet paper in the bathrooms. :)

         On the way home there was an interesting dynamic. Like I had mentioned before, when we rode through Haiti we were stopped often so that the guards could check the white peoples’ passports (I don’t mean to offend anyone by using direct terms, I have just become accustomed to calling it like it is in my conversations about race and ethnicity in the DR).  On this ride back from Haiti to Santiago we were stopped just as frequently but this time they literally only checked the Hatians’ passports. Every single time. I was sitting next to my Haitian friend and had fallen asleep on his shoulder. And still they asked for his and not once asked for mine. I got to thinking about the injustice of it all. And about where else this would happen. I didn’t have to look much further than our own country. Isn’t this something that would happen with a truck full of migrant workers from Mexico? Haven’t we seen thousands of cases of injustice towards our African American and Mexican American brothers and sisters in particular, not to mention the other minority groups? Why is there more trust and preference given to me, simply for having white skin? I once overheard an international student who is often mistaken for being Haitian, although he is actually from another island (which one, I cannot remember at the moment), speaking about the issue. He is on the receiving end of much injustice, and he mentioned that Haitians in general haven’t really done much to help the issue. He says that they get stereotyped as causing fights all the time and the reality is that even though far from all Haitians cause fights, enough of them continue to do so to perpetuate the stereotype. This was an interesting thought to me. It only gives further insight into how complicated the issue is. Does the stereotype perpetuate the action or the action the stereotype? Who can say…All I know is that I have looked into the eyes of beloved people who have been wrongly discriminated against because of some stupid stereotype that reaches much farther into the spectrum with its discrimination than do the people who are actually perpetuating it. And it is heart-breaking.

Constanza

Constanza. This place is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We went for a full weekend. We stayed in the most beautiful, quaint little houses that overlooked the valley that is literally breathtaking. We could sit on our porch, listen to music from all corners of the town, watch the motos cruising down the road, gaze over the patch-work-quilt patterned colorful hills that somehow fit all of their pieces together haphazardly and feel the slightly crisp air on our faces that held whispers of a perfect spring-time sunset from home. Peace. If I had to use one word to define Constanza, that would be it. Aside from the fact that it is situated in the middle of a broken world, I could definitely envision heaven looking a little bit like the view of Constanza I had from my back porch.
When we got there the first day we had the option of touring a greenhouse and seeing some hotel ruins or going on a short hike. I chose the hike. It was the path that the revolutionaries of the June 14th group took in their plotting against Trujillo. Which is pretty unfortunate if you ask me because it was super muddy. I thought it was fun, though, because I had time to explore and wasn’t fleeing from anybody. The next day we took “safari trucks”-trucks with benches and tarp in the back-up the mountain on this narrow, winding road up to a gorgeous waterfall. I jumped in the water, which was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit O.o . My whole body was numb when I got out. That night we had dinner at the place we were staying in this pretty gazebo of sorts. Afterward there was much music and dancing and we had a bonfire after that! (Made me miss camping…)
The last day we went to town to go to a market, which was a crazy free-for-all. It was like a few square blocks of tarp under which there were tons of tables. It was hard to tell who was the owner most of the time. It was kind of separated by nationality-one side consisted primarily of Dominican vendors and the other of Haitian vendors. The Haitian side smelled and looked and felt oddly of a Goodwill store on the streets with Haitian vendors. And here’s the thing: it sort of is. The stuff that the Haitians were selling was mostly stuff sent from the United States. And here’s the crazy point I want to get across: the majority of the clothes sent by well-meaning Americans does not actually go to the poor Haitians that need clothing! Here is what happens: some of it makes it to them, yes. But most of it goes to people who have money and they give it to poor Haitians to do their dirty work and sell it in the market for them. In turn, I do believe that they give them a small stipend, although I must admit that I didn’t totally understand this part. But both my host mom and our director have confirmed that most of the relief sent to Haiti ends up in the hands of the people who already have money. These problems can’t be solved by good intentions. It cannot be solved by people sending their second-hand clothing. (I’m not saying this shouldn’t happen, because it does help!) This just doesn’t have the necessary effect to solve the problem. They need more than the clothes we don’t wear anymore and would throw away otherwise. I’m not sure exactly what that is yet, but I know that what’s happening is not enough.

Las Hermanas Mirabal

Last weekend we went to a house “museum” that was the house of three very important women to the history and the present of the Dominican Republic. Their story is so sad and so inspiring that I cannot help myself but share it with you and hope that you read it. (Also, a better account can be found in the movie or book of In the Time of the Butterflies or Tropico de Sangre so if you have the time to read or watch one of those do that instead of read my incomplete and probably inaccurate account-although I promise I’m not being overdramatic for the sake of story-telling. Everything I describe really did happen.)
“Las Hermanas Mirabal” refers to 3 very powerful women that were leaders in the revolution against Trujillo, a dictator that demanded respect and fear for 30 years as the Dominican Republic’s leader. Anybody that he thought did or said anything in opposition to him was “disappeared”. Sometimes they returned, a different person after suffering unmentionable tortures, but many times they did not. The Mirabal sisters’ scuffles with him began at some sort of ball or party to which their family was invited. Minerva, one of the sisters, was dying to go to law school. Of course, no woman was allowed to do this. Trujillo asked her to dance with him. Nobody says no to Trujillo. So she did but she took the opportunity to bring forth her request for him to make an exception. He told her that women belong in the house and that she was too beautiful to worry about things like law. He began to get touchy with her and she pushed him back. Nobody pushes Trujillo; the whole room stopped and stared. He let the family go home because Trujillo always did his business in secret. But a day or a few days later one of his generals showed up to their house. They took away their father. The family went to get their father back. Minerva ended up making a deal with the General. They were going to roll a dice. If she won, she got her father back and got to go to law school. If she lost, she would stay at his service for life. She won…
Sort of. Her father returned a broken, helpless man and died shortly thereafter. She did go to law school and completed her degree. But as it was handed to her, the General pointed out that he never said anything about allowing her to practice law. So she joined a revolution plotting to overthrow Trujillo. Eventually two of her three sisters joined, and they all married men in the revolution. The third sister’s husband wouldn’t allow her to be a part of it and someone had to stay home to take care of their mother and everyone else’s children. So she did. Consequently, she survived and I met her last weekend. Her name is Dedé and she is a captivatingly honest and beautiful woman. She will be turning 87 in a couple weeks. I remember that one of the questions we asked her was if she had any part in the revolution that her sisters led. She told us that clearly she hadn’t because she was still alive. She said (in Spanish, of course), “I kept my mouth shut and he didn’t kill me. They didn’t, so he killed them.” Back to the past…
The women and their husbands spent a good deal of time in jail once Trujillo was on to their little revolution. After some international involvement began, the sisters were eventually let free and returned to their homes to begin petitioning for the release of their husbands. A little bit after they were released Trujillo came to visit their house. After all he had done to them-tortures to them and their husbands right in front of their eyes-he had come to hear their gratitude for their release. This was what really got to me-it wasn’t just a power thing for him. He was so personally involved in the oppression that he personally showed up to peoples’ houses to humiliate them. Anyway, Minerva still wouldn’t have relations with him and asked for the release of their husbands when they got there. Shortly after, they went to go visit their husbands in prison. It was the year 1960. On the way back their car was stopped and they were taken into the corn field where they were beaten to death. This scene in the movie In the Time of the Butterflies was so powerful to me. I don’t know if it’s exactly how it happened or not (I’m not sure if anyone knows) but it was powerful. Minerva looked right into the eyes of one of the men who was about to beat her to death and told him that he didn’t have to do this. Even though she knew full well what he was about to do to her, she recognized his brokenness and his fear. Nevertheless the men rounded the sisters up and formed a circle around them. The women repeated to themselves over and over again “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”
Of course, Trujillo made this look like an accident. He ordered that their bodies be put back in the car and a brick or something put on the gas pedal so it would drive itself off the cliff and look like an accident. By this point, though, everyone knew that there weren’t any accidents of these sorts. 6 months later, in 1961, Trujillo was assassinated.
I think part of the reason this has affected me so much is that the effects are still so apparent. Trujillo wanted to “purify the Dominican race” and gave horrible treatment to Haitians. The country has made many strides toward recovering a good relationship with Haitians, but prejudice is still very visible in some places. Some of my Dominican friends that are women are studying law and would not have that opportunity without the fight of the Mirabal sisters. Also, their strength was so profound that one cannot help but stop and take a critical look at one’s own life. Would I have the strength to do what they did in their situation? Probably not. That’s a sobering reality. What should one do to find that strength? Where does it come from? “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” –Psalm 121:2
Once again, I am going to refer to what I’ve learned from Captivating. (Seriously, reading this book was like having someone speak to me the words of my heart as I realized them for the first time. I'm not saying that it is perfect. It is written by humans. And I don't support everything in the book. But I still think that you should read it.) We all want to have an irreplaceable role in the Kingdom. Women are created with beauty, yes, but we need more that to just be beautiful. We are born wanting to save the day in some special way that nobody else can. Unfortunately, so often life gets to us and “we don’t feel that we are irreplaceable, so we try to make ourselves useful” instead. We forget that this wasn’t God’s original plan for us. I couldn’t help but remember this upon hearing the story of these women. They didn’t forget this. They died fighting for what they believed in. And yet somehow they still won. We face little battles every single day. What would the world look like if we believed so strongly in the Kingdom that was, is, and is to come that we began fighting-I mean, really fighting-for it now?

La Isabela

This weekend our trip was a co-pay trip to La Isabela, the first established European colony in the New World. I have previously expressed my feelings on history, but this was actually so cool! So I want to share a little bit. I’m going to do a sweeping accreditation right now of my facts to the spoken word of my program director Lynne Guitar, a researcher of history and anthropology. First off, some people will say that it’s not worth going to because so many of the ruins are gone. Part of this is because Trujillo ordered one of his men to clean up the mess, whose solution was to dump it all in the sea. What’s left of the ruins is dwindling because the locals will take the rubble from what’s left to build their own homes. It’s hard for them to respect the history when they’re just trying to survive their own place in history right now. Columbus first arrived with his men around Christmas time. They celebrated Christmas Eve more heartily than Christmas day itself, and they did so but drinking it away. There was a shipwreck because all of the men were drunk and a 12-year-old was left in charge of the ship. So when they decided to return, 39 of them had to stay. But Columbus promised that he would be back within a year. And he was-he came back around Christmas time the next year…to find the rotting corpses of all 39 of them. What had happened was that the Spaniards had integrated well with the Tainos and the Tainos killed them because “they didn’t know how to live in a civilized society”. They had begun raping the Taino women. This was mostly due to them not understanding the Taino culture very clearly. The Tainos encouraged sexual experimentation from a very young age before marriage. Any baby born was seen as a gift. And they were very hospitable so when the Spaniards came as guests they would lend them women to be their bedmates. Since the Spaniards saw everyone sleeping with everyone else, they thought it was okay to take any woman they pleased, but it was not. So the Tainos decided they had to kill them off. But they couldn’t have imagined the terremoto that came back with Columbus, but neither were the Spaniards prepared for such disaster. Columbus brought 1,200 men with him. Each Spaniard ate about 8 times what each Taino would eat. And they were all hidalgos-important people-so they weren’t going to lift a finger to help cultivate the land. Everyone was going hungry after awhile. Furthermore, the Spaniards encountered new diseases they had no immunity to. Within the first 3 months 400 Spaniards died of dehydration from dysentery. We saw a complete skeleton of one of the Spaniards (the Tainos put boards on the foreheads of their children so they all has purposefully slanted foreheads so with his flat forehead this is known to be a Spaniard) and that was really a strange feeling. It wasn’t even like in a glass box in a museum. It was just out in the open with a hut over it to shelter it from the elements.
Okay, end of history lesson for the day. After this we went to the beach in La Isabela, where there is a large coral reef. The water was so calm and so shallow and so warm! And I got to walk on the reef! (Thank you Chacos! :) ) I found some shells and some other cool things and just had fun exploring. Later we were finding cool crabs and stuff when some Dominicans sauntered by with a LIVE sea urchin in their hands!!! They let me hold it =] It felt so weird because I could feel it moving. In our other searches I made a hermit crab friend and we found some baby sea urchins. At one point I was holding both my friend and a baby sea urchin and I think that the sea urchin was about to eat the crab because it suctioned him to himself so I had to separate them (although I have to admit, that would have been fascinating to watch, but I was a little leery of a sea urchin stunning his prey on my hand…) We ate lunch from an amazing woman who cooks on the beach for a living and it was soooo good. Some people ate fish (I don’t particularly enjoy seafood so I wasn’t that daring) and others ate chicken. We had to let her know in advance that we were coming because they catch the fish the morning of, and she had to know how many to catch. The meat plus the tostones plus the rice and beans plus the salad plus the coke was about $5. Incredible.

After that beach we went to a different beach that was much wavier. There was a string of rocks the went out into the ocean (sort of like what lines the Grand Haven pier but without the pier) and I made it all the way out! But barely. I lost a flip flop a couple of times and I was scared of losing my camera. But I made it and it was beautiful. After I got back from that, a friend and I decided we were going to try and cross off another Reto from our list by obtaining, opening, and drinking a coconut from a tree. We intended to climb the tree but that was ruled out after a few feeble attempts. So I got a coconut from the ground and threw it at the cluster. I had several really good hits! But I think that they were not at all ripe and they hardly budged. So my friend began to shimmy up with another friend’s help with spotting. She made it so far up but he wasn’t tall enough to get her up further and she was still a little out of reach. All the Dominicans on the beach had formed a little motorcycle cluster and thought we were so amusing. Sadly, we had to go so we had to give up. I was a little heartbroken. We will find a way somehow before we leave! I slept contentedly for much of the way home and arrived peacefully. Then, I began my homework for the next day. Just another day in the life :)