A week in the Dominican Republic...

My week always begins at Hospital Cabral y Báez (below) - I spend Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the hospital. I attend resident lectures in the morning and afternoon, which are very similar to lectures you would hear at an American hospital (except the language, of course). On Mondays and Fridays, I spend much of my day at the HIV clinic located in the hospital. I've been screening patients for depression, which, as you can imagine, is quite prevalent in this population. On Wednesday mornings, I give a case conference to the residents and doctors in english. This is kind of difficult, as they have varying abilities in english. One thing that I've been learning is that they can all read english, it's speaking and listening to it that is hard for them.

Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend in the mountains. We've been leaving Santiago on Wednesday evening and spending the night at the clinic - they have a bed and kitchen right there (and fun bugs to battle). One reason we go up Wednesday night is to catch the local pick-up basketball game. Unfortunately, it has rained the past two weeks...

Here are some pictures of a game at the home-made cancha (court). The games at the main cancha in Pedro Garcia are full-court, really competitive, and very fun.

I’m usually hungry by the time we come back from the mountains, and the sweet smells of fried street food are just too much to resist…

We find enough time to play (more than) a few hands of cribbage each week. With all this playing, we’ve gotten some pretty amazing hands (see below-6-7-7-8-8)! The World Cribbage Championship stands at Rebe: 11, Micah: 8.

We’ve also added Dominoes to our game repertoire; it was a great anniversary gift!

We’re well fed from the plantains that our neighbor gave us (thankfully we’ve mastered the fine art of tostone making—fried green salty plantains-wow they're good). The avocado man sold us the world’s largest avocado, too.

The preschool kids keep me (Rebekah) entertained and busy! At the end of the class, I am a bucket of sweat. This little guy is my jokester. He told me that he’s got rats living in his house (that part is likely true), and then he took off his shoe and showed me his holey sock. “The rats ate it,” he claimed (which I hope isn't true).

Here are a few more photos (a few...well, I couldn’t decide so I’ll show you more than a few) of our class.

Francisco and Yanibel are BFF.

The whole group (minus 2) eating snack.

That’s it for now...we promise it won’t be another week before we write again!

Las Terrenas

We celebrated our anniversary weekend big-time this year. So big-time, in fact, that it took us a full week to recover enough to finally post a decent summary of it. (Well, not really, we actually just happened to be pretty busy this week...but we did have a lot of fun in Las Terrenas!).

Last Friday we boarded a super full guagua which took us directly to Las Terrenas, a town on the Atlantic-side of the Samana Penninsula. The ride was not exactly comfortable (we were wedged on "add-in" seats into the aisle, Micah in front and me behind him). But for 4.5 hours you can bear nearly anything, and we were treated to an amazing weekend once we got there!

We spent Friday night at our hotel's restaurant, chatting with our Italian hotel-owner who was convinced we were from Sweden. We also were asked if we were French, which we found hilarious (everyone around Santiago assumes we're from the US...I'm having a hard time convincing my preschoolers to call me Rebekah and not Americana, even). Anyway, we each got our wish--Micah for fresh fish (red snapper) and me for a mojito.

Saturday we took a motoconcho to Playa Cosón, just west of Las Terrenas. We stationed ourselves at this little hut which grilled freshly caught fish and had super cold cerveza.

The view from the hut.

In between swimming breaks we played many a hand of cribbage (to date: the World Championship Cribbage Score reads Rebekah: 8, Micah: 4).

And we ate (devoured) more fresh fish. For me, something filleted. For Micah, something whole. Both were absolutely delicious.

We walked from Playa Cosón along the beach until we reached Playa Bonita, where we were enticed by the gentle waves to rent one surfboard and one boogie (beached whale) board. We didn't get any pictures of the action, but Micah stood up a few times on his board!

We acted cheesy and then attempted trying to walk back to our hotel but got talked into renting another motoconcho (he gave us a sweet deal, very hard to refuse).

That night we sat on the beach and then went for pizza. The next morning, we ate one more meal of fish and snapped a couple more photos outside Los Pescadores--the place where the fishing boats launch.

Despite being exhausted after traveling home, we had a perfect weekend of enjoying each other's company and playing in the water. We're continually reminded of how blessed we are to get to experience this country, and its people, this year.

Mini Serie Mundial

Last week, Rebekah and I went to the opening game of the Little League World Series. This was more like the Caribbean world series, but had teams from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, the United States, and the Dominican Republic. It was our first trip to the Cibao Stadium here in Santiago, and was quite a treat! Here is a view of the ballpark, where we'll be watching the Aguilas (Eagles) play this winter (they have a winter baseball season here).

As you can see, there was an opening ceremony before the game. Sitting through this gave us more of a taste of the culture here in the caribbean. Let me explain... The game was slated to start at 7 pm, and we got their a bit early so we could grab a bite to eat before it started. Well, they started to set up the chairs, microphone, and banners at 7 pm. About an hour later, all of the important people began to file into the chairs out on the infield. This was followed by about an hour of speeches, it seemed like everyone and their mother had to stand in front of the microphone and give a speech about the importance of this day! Well, needless to say, the kids were getting a little restless...

And I got hungry... This is bola de yuca and quipe, two street-food delicacies!

And even though there were kids beating on drums and playing trumpets in the stands...

And the teams started filing out...

They kept right on giving speeches! (note man in black suit giving speech - above) Also, spot the Aguila mascot, warming up for the winter baseball season.

Team Mexico was the honored guests, as they had recently gotten second place at the official little league world series held in Williamsport, PA. They played the Dominican Republic in the opening game.

Here's a bit of the action.

All in all, it was a great night, the food was good, and there was baseball in the air. We now know, however, never to show up early to an event that has an official opening ceremony!

Beach Weekend Preview

Last Friday we took a 4 hour bus ride to one of the most beautiful places in the world--Las Terrenas. I should be packing right now, and getting ready to go the the clinic (we're heading up tonight to play basketball with the boys club boys, and then we'll stay overnight so we're ready for Thursday's activities--preschool, boys club, clinic, girls club).

I can't help but give you a little preview of Las Terrenas, though. It's the low season right now, and we basically had these beaches to ourselves. We swam, ate a lot of fish, surfed, kayaked...more to come!!

It's Officially Melted

My heart, that is. And surprisingly, it's not because of the heat. It's because of these sweet kiddos--check out those eyes!

When we arrived in the DR, I had no idea how I would spend my time here. I did visit some English schools when we first got to Santiago but I really didn't connect with the directors or with their educational philosophies. I knew that if I was patient, something would come up, and when Jim & Rita told me that they really wanted to start a preschool up in the mountains, I said hooray! I'll do it! On Tuesday, we had our first class at La Escuelita in Los Pajones, on site at the clinic. Here's a peek of what it looks like.

We had to use what was available for the space, but I think it turned out okay, and we'll keep adding things as we find them. The kids (3 and 4 years old) seemed to enjoy playing with toys, play-do, listening to stories and singing songs. For not being away from their parents or relatives pretty much ever, they did an amazing job of marching right in and getting down to business! Those little shirts and scarves are their "uniforms" and the lady in the yellow is Yunessy, a helper (whose Spanish, unlike mine, never fails her).

(We have 12 kids at each school, but a few were hiding and didn't make the photo). My other "helper" is Máximon, who hangs out at Cheima's house (the neighbor) all day. He has trouble at school because of some learning issues, but he did a really nice job helping out!

Thursday was the first day of La Escuelita in La Tinajita. Here's the road to get to the Club de Madres (Mother's Club) where we meet for this school. It's a pretty secluded village, around 25 minutes of walking from the main road to get there. Hence, it's hard to make money, or to be in touch with the rest of the world, but there is a lot of good farm land around.

I got there early to set up, and I had to lock the door to keep the kids out until 9:30! (And the helpers. I think around 20 people wanted to come in and help...they were excited!). Aren't these kids adorable? This guy was moving so fast I had trouble catching him.

The girls playing "house."He really liked the Play-Do.And he really liked the trucks.And they all really liked the snack.
One little guy was hunched over his milk looking sad, and when I asked him what was wrong he shook his carton at me...it was empty! So we squeezed it really hard until some more came out. And then another little goober put his on the ground and jumped on it--I think he was making to lick it up but I didn't let him...they're clever!So this is where I'll be spending Tuesday and Thursday mornings! If you think if it, say a little prayer for these schools, and these sweet kids, that they might be nourished both with food and with learning.

Now it's time to pack for our weekend adventure to Las Terrenas! We'll be celebrating 2 years of married fun!